Beyond Fossil Fuels: Fiscal transition in BRICS

[Kjell Kühne]

Dear colleagues,

 

as the BRICS leaders’ are meeting in Brasilia, IISD and LINGO have published the report “Beyond Fossil Fuels: Fiscal transition in BRICS”, including a cross-country analysis and five country briefs: https://www.iisd.org/library/beyond-fossil-fuels-brics

The key messages are:

• As the clean energy transition advances, the BRICS governments need to start preparing their budgets for a fiscal transition out of revenues from fossil fuel production and consumption. The clean energy transition offers alternatives to fossil fuels and thus can lead to the decrease in revenues for the BRICS governments in two ways: through a drop in fossil fuel prices and, over the longer term, through the shrinkage of absolute amounts of fossil fuel production and consumption.
• In 2017, taxes and other revenues from fossil fuel production and consumption amounted to 23.6 per cent of general government revenue in Russia, 17.8 per cent in India, 6.8 per cent in both Brazil and South Africa, and 4.2 per cent in China. These revenues should be used strategically to help diversify BRICS economies away from fossil fuels and cover the social costs of transition, including for vulnerable groups of consumers, workers and communities currently depending on fossil fuels.
• The BRICS governments’ budgets are also being eroded by subsidies to fossil fuel production and consumption. Phasing out these subsidies will both increase government revenues and promote transition beyond fossil fuels.

 

Kind regards,

Kjell Kühne

Leave it in the Ground Initiative (LINGO)

http://leave-it-in-the-ground.org/

skype: kjell79

whatsapp&mobile: +52-1-967-1053425