Shining a Light on Fossil Fuel Subsidies at the WTO: How NGOs can contribute to WTO notification and surveillance

The document argues that fossil fuel subsidies undermine climate mitigation and the trading system, yet remain under-reported at the WTO due to definitional ambiguities and Member reluctance. It concludes that while formal rules on such subsidies are unlikely in the near term, the Trade Policy Review Mechanism (TPRM) provides a non-coercive forum for transparency. The authors propose a standardized notification template for NGOs to provide publicly available data on fossil fuel subsidies to the WTO Secretariat, thereby encouraging government accountability and potential reform without immediately triggering legal disputes.

• Global fossil fuel subsidies are estimated to exceed US$600 billion annually, creating market distortions and hindering the transition to a low-carbon future.
• WTO Members frequently fail to meet their notification obligations under the Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures (ASCM), leading to inadequate data and an increased risk of disputes.
• There is a significant gap between the number of fossil fuel support measures identified by the OECD Inventory and those notified to the WTO; for the 2008–2013 period, the OECD identified 640 measures compared to only 64 at the WTO.
• The 'non-actionable' subsidy category under Article 8 of the ASCM lapsed in 2000, and the authors argue that reviving it is unlikely due to long-standing ideological disagreements among Members regarding which subsidies should be shielded from challenge.
• The Trade Policy Review Mechanism (TPRM) is identified as a more feasible forum for increasing transparency than the SCM Committee because its reports are issued by the Secretariat and do not imply that a measure is legally actionable.
• The authors propose a new two-part notification template for NGOs, consisting of a notification summary organized by ISIC codes and a detailed description of each subsidy program, to ensure data is comparable and fits the ASCM definition.
• Increased transparency through the TPRM is unlikely to trigger more disputes because the high legal and financial hurdles of the WTO dispute settlement system discourage most complaints.

APA

Casier, L., Fraser, R., Halle, M., & Wolfe, R. (2014). Shining a Light on Fossil Fuel Subsidies at the WTO: How NGOs can contribute to WTO notification and surveillance. International Institute for Sustainable Development. https://www.iisd.org/system/files/publications/fossil_fuel_subsidies_WTO.pdf

Chicago

Casier, Liesbeth, Robin Fraser, Mark Halle, and Robert Wolfe. Shining a Light on Fossil Fuel Subsidies at the WTO: How NGOs can contribute to WTO notification and surveillance. International Institute for Sustainable Development, 2014. https://www.iisd.org/system/files/publications/fossil_fuel_subsidies_WTO.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Casier |first1=Liesbeth |last2=Fraser |first2=Robin |last3=Halle |first3=Mark |last4=Wolfe |first4=Robert |title=Shining a Light on Fossil Fuel Subsidies at the WTO: How NGOs can contribute to WTO notification and surveillance |publisher=International Institute for Sustainable Development |date=January 2014 |url=https://www.iisd.org/system/files/publications/fossil_fuel_subsidies_WTO.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{casier2014shining, author = {Casier, Liesbeth and Fraser, Robin and Halle, Mark and Wolfe, Robert}, title = {{Shining a Light on Fossil Fuel Subsidies at the WTO: How NGOs can contribute to WTO notification and surveillance}}, institution = {International Institute for Sustainable Development}, year = {2014}, month = jan, url = {https://www.iisd.org/system/files/publications/fossil_fuel_subsidies_WTO.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }