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The environmental argument behind fossil fuel subsidy reform is strong, particularly among international finance institutions wishing to support 'transformational' low-carbon development. However, supporting reform in practice has often met methodological and political barriers. Instead, a large share of international climate finance has flowed to national policies and measures that incentivize the deployment of low-carbon technologies such as renewable energy technologies. In this paper, we propose that 'hybrid' policies that package fossil fuel subsidy reform with low-carbon technology deployment policy offer an opportunity for donors to support mitigation activities that achieve both concrete environmental impacts as well as longterm structural change. Specifically, we model the abatement cost, fossil fuel subsidy savings, and generation cost resulting from combining wind and solar photovoltaic deployment policy with fossil fuel subsidy phase-out in four country case studies. Our results not only show the extent to which fossil fuel subsidies can undermine the financial viability of low-carbon energy technologies, but also how cost uncertainties can be buffered by combining fossil fuel subsidy reform with renewable energy deployment. Furthermore, we assess the proposed hybrid policy against typical climate finance criteria and thus contribute to debates surrounding donor strategies to support low-carbon development. ; ISSN:1748-9326 ; ISSN:1748-9318

In WTO Law and Trade Policy Reform for Low-Carbon Technology Diffusion, Zaker Ahmad puts a spotlight on the crucial importance of dismantling market barriers and offering incentives to improve clean technology access and diffusion across borders. To that end, the author argues for a synergistic co-development of the international trade and climate legal regimes. Two case studies – one on carbon pricing, another on official export credit support – place the theoretical arguments in a practical trade policy setting. The emerging doctrine and principle of Common Concern of Humankind serves as the key theoretical and structural foundation of the work. A useful read for anyone interested in an effective role of trade law and policy to facilitate climate action. Readership: Policy professionals, and academics working on the issue of trade, climate change, and technology transfer are key readers. Also useful for anyone interested in the role of trade in service of climate mitigation.

Can community energy help to overcome inequalities in who benefits from low-carbon technologies? Research has shown that the distribution of low-carbon technology subsidies and their associated benefits can be highly uneven across socioeconomic groups, revealing a persistent inequality issue. Yet this research has tended to focus almost exclusively on adoption of technologies at the household-level, with limited insights into whether and how this distribution might differ in the case of community energy. To address this, this paper quantitatively investigates the distribution of payments to household- and community-level energy systems across socioeconomic groups in Scotland under the UK government feed-in-tariff. Analysis is conducted on a novel dataset of 26,218 household and community wind and solar installations across 6,976 micro-level data-zones using a combination of distributional analysis and random effects within-between regression. It finds that feed-in-tariff payments for household-level wind and solar PV systems have heavily benefitted more affluent socioeconomic groups, while payments to community energy projects have flowed more consistently into areas of higher deprivation, particularly in the case of community solar. These findings suggest that community energy has been successful in bringing the benefits of low-carbon technologies to areas of lower income and higher deprivation, with important lessons for policymakers concerned with a just transition going forward.