Detox Development : Repurposing Environmentally Harmful Subsidies - Overview (English)

Government subsidies today make up an enormous share of public budgets worldwide, perhaps larger than at any point in human history. In many countries, the magnitude of explicit subsidies in the natural resource sectors exceeds that of investments in important public goods such as health and education. This report identifies and quantifies known as well as new channels through which poorly designed subsidies in natural resource sectors, though often well intentioned, deepen inequality, diminish productivity, and drive the destruction of ecosystems. Especially in an era of fiscal constraints and degrading natural capital, reform and repurposing of perverse and harmful subsidies offer an opportunity to promote greater sustainability, inclusion, and shared prosperity. This report examines the impacts of subsidies on the world's stock of foundational natural capital, clean air, land, and oceans. These natural assets are critical for human health and nutrition and underpin much of the economy. Poor air quality is responsible for approximately one in five deaths globally. And as the new analyses in this report show, some of these deaths can be attributed to fossil fuel subsidies. Agriculture is the largest user of land worldwide, feeding the world and employing 1 billion people, including 78 percent of the world's poor. But agriculture is subsidized in ways that promote inefficiency, inequity, and unsustainability. And oceans, which support the world's fisheries and supply about 3 billion people with almost 20 percent of their intake of animal protein, are in a collective state of crisis: more than 34 percent of fisheries are overfished, and this situation is exacerbated by open-access regimes and capacity increasing subsidies.