Energy and the Glasgow Climate Pact: Paving the Way for Fossil Fuel Subsidy Reform?

The 26th Conference of the Parties (COP26) to the United Nation Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) broke the traditional silence of the international climate change regime on the primary culprits of climate change – fossil fuels. Its cover decision, the Glasgow Climate Pact (GCP), explicitly called upon the parties to the Paris Agreement to accelerate the transition towards low emission energy systems through the adoption of energy transition policies such as phasing down unabated coal power and phasing out inefficient fossil fuel subsidies. This article examines the potential contribution of the GCP to intergovernmental initiatives to phase out fossil fuel subsidies. It does this by analysing the effective content of the GCP vis-à-vis existing intergovernmental commitments. It finds that the GCP is mostly a reiteration of existing commitments and lacks the necessary detail to induce meaningful subsidy reform. However, the recognition of fossil fuel subsidy reform as an integral part of the climate change mitigation policy toolbox by the international climate change regime provides normative support and momentum to ongoing fragmented intergovernmental initiatives to tackle environmentally harmful fossil fuel subsidies.