Attitudes to fossil fuel subsidy removal: A cross-country analysis on four continents

Abstract

The world annually spends $423 billion on subsidizing fossil fuels. Removing fossil fuel subsidies is crucial not only for reducing CO2 emissions and making carbon pricing policies more effective, but also for making more valuable use of government funds. Currently, however, scientific evidence on the scale and scope of public attitudes to fossil fuel subsidy removal policies is lacking, although it is crucial for gauging political feasibility. Furthermore, previous studies focus on carbon pricing in the developed world. Our novel contributions to the literature are, first, a comparative analysis of attitudes to both carbon taxation and fossil-fuel subsidy removal, and second, a focus on five developing countries across four continents. It is found that a) removing fossil fuel subsidies is not more undesirable than introducing carbon taxation and b) the public has more positive attitudes to subsidy removal if optimal use of the surplus fiscal revenues is specified.