Introducing the G20 Peer Reviews
On 25 September 2009, the Leaders of the G20, at their annual Summit (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA), issued a joint statement committing themselves to “Rationalize and phase out over the medium term inefficient fossil fuel subsidies that encourage wasteful consumption”. Over the next several years, the G20 members themselves conducted an exercise in self reporting of their fossil fuel subsidies and reform commitments. Those efforts achieved limited success, with variable degrees of transparency and levels of ambition. (See the two reports by Doug Koplow from November 2010 and June 2012.) By early 2012, however, the OECD had launched its Inventory of Estimated Budgetary Support and Tax Expenditures for Fossil Fuels, which provided far more details than were available in the G20 Members’ self reports. That the G20 should conduct voluntary peer reviews of their reform efforts was proposed by the OECD during Russia’s presidency of the G20, in 2013. The OECD had long and generally positive experiences with peer reviews, so it was a logical tool to recommend. The proposal was accepted and formally established in paragraph 94 of the G20 Leaders’ Declaration issued during their 2013 Summit (6 September 2013, St Petersburg, Russia): “We reaffirm our commitment to rationalise and phase […]