The WTO and the IMF are not the only multilateral institutions that have attempted to influence how national governments use subsidies.
Several multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs), such as the Convention on Biological Diversity, have tried to draw more attention to the effects that subsidies have on the environmental assets that they are charged with protecting. The need for subsidy reform in respect of agriculture, fisheries and energy was also highlighted at the 2002 Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development.
Yet none have dared so far to consider more than studying the problem or issuing exhortatory statements on the matter, or calling for more spending on "green" subsidies.
With the Kyoto Protocol having now come into force, the problem of subsidies to energy is likely to become more than just an idle debating point. The Kyotol Protocol, alone among MEAs, establishes a general obligation to take measures ("in accordance with national circumstances") to phase out market imperfections, like "subsidies in all greenhouse gas emitting sectors that run counter to the objective of the Convention" (Article 2.1(a)). While substantial margin for manoeuvre is granted to each signatory, it is likely that subsidies will increasingly come to the fore. And not only subsidies to fossil fuels: as the world market for biofuels and renewable-energy technologies expands, countries will start to look much closer at the kinds of infant-industry and domestic-supply promoting subsidies so favored by proponents of renewable energy.
