How energy taxation can end destructive fishing

The report examines how fuel subsidies artificially lower operating costs, enabling overfishing and the expansion of industrial fleets at the expense of small-scale fishers and marine ecosystems. It posits that removing these subsidies is essential for meeting EU climate and biodiversity goals, as well as international obligations under the WTO and the Paris Agreement. The author identifies the revision of the Energy Taxation Directive (ETD) as a critical opportunity to end fuel tax exemptions, suggesting that resulting revenues and existing funds like the Just Transition Fund be used to support low-impact fisheries.

• Fuel subsidies are the most prevalent type of capacity-enhancing subsidy, accounting for 22% of the $22.2 billion spent globally each year. These subsidies mask the true costs of fishing, creating incentives to fish at uneconomic levels and beyond sustainable limits.
• Fuel subsidies disproportionately benefit large-scale fisheries (LSF), with 90% of global capacity-enhancing subsidies (and 96% of fuel subsidies) going to LSF. In the EU, distant-fishing fleets consume 16.5% of fuel despite accounting for less than 2% of fishing days, while small-scale coastal fleets consume only 6% of fuel despite representing around 56% of total days-at-sea.

APA

Lambrechts, L. (2021). How energy taxation can end destructive fishing. ClientEarth. https://www.clientearth.org/media/0sid2bvq/how-energy-taxation-can-end-destructive-fishing.pdf

Chicago

Lambrechts, Louis. How energy taxation can end destructive fishing. ClientEarth, 2021. https://www.clientearth.org/media/0sid2bvq/how-energy-taxation-can-end-destructive-fishing.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Lambrechts |first1=Louis |title=How energy taxation can end destructive fishing |publisher=ClientEarth |date=January 2021 |url=https://www.clientearth.org/media/0sid2bvq/how-energy-taxation-can-end-destructive-fishing.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{lambrechts2021how, author = {Lambrechts, Louis}, title = {{How energy taxation can end destructive fishing}}, institution = {ClientEarth}, year = {2021}, month = jan, url = {https://www.clientearth.org/media/0sid2bvq/how-energy-taxation-can-end-destructive-fishing.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }