A How-to Guide: Measuring subsidies to fossil-fuel producers

The production of fossil fuels-oil, coal and gas-is subsidized by countries around the world. The Global Subsidies Initiative estimates that these subsidies are likely to be at least $100 billion per year.

But public information on how countries subsidize fossil-fuel producers, and to what extent, is scarce. How can societies decide whether subsidizing the production of fossil fuels is the best use of public funds if they do not know the scale of this support, who gets it and what its impacts are? This policy provides a "how-to" guide for measuring producer subsidies. It is the second policy brief in a series outlining a three-stage process of reform: "define-measure-evaluate." The brief provides an introduction and guide to using the manual "Subsidy Estimation: A survey of current practice" to work through the process of finding the necessary data and applying methodologies for calculating the value of producer subsidies.