Untold Billions: Fossil-fuel subsidies, their impacts and the path to reform: A Summary of Key Findings

Untold Billions: Fossil-fuel subsidies, their impacts and the path to reform is a report summarizing a project that includes series of papers examining the extent of fossil-fuel subsidies, their impact on climate change and sustainable development more broadly, and the challenges to their reform. The aim of the project is to take the first and necessary steps toward a better understanding of the scope and role of fossil-fuel subsidies in the world economy. The papers provide a detailed overview, setting out what is currently known about subsidies to this sector and addressing key areas that need to be tackled for countries to undertake reform initiatives.

This report presents two introductory forewords to the issue of fossil-fuel subsidy reform. The first is by José María Figueres, Chairman of the Board, Carbon War Room, and Former President of Costa Rica, and the second is by Achim Steiner, United Nations Under-Secretary General and United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Executive Director. It then summarizes the key messages from the five core research papers in the Untold Billions series:

• Untold Billions: Fossil-fuel subsidies, their impacts and the path to reform: A Summary of Key Findings
• Effects of Fossil-Fuel Subsidy Reform: A review of modelling and empirical studies
• The Politics of Fossil-Fuel Subsidies
• Strategies for Reforming Fossil-Fuel Subsidies: Practical lessons from Ghana, France and Senegal
• Gaining Traction: The importance of transparency in accelerating the reform of fossil-fuel subsidies
• Mapping the Characteristics of Producer Subsidies: A review of pilot country studies

For information about the GSI's other reports on fossil-fuel subsidies, click here.