"Clean air, land, and oceans are critical for human health and nutrition and underpin much of the world's economy. Yet they suffer from degradation, poor management, and overuse due to government subsidies.
'Detox Development: Repurposing Environmentally Harmful Subsidies' examines the impact of subsidies on these foundational natural assets. Explicit and implicit subsidies--estimated to exceed US$7 trillion per year--not only promote inefficiencies but also cause much environmental harm. Poor air quality is responsible for approximately 1 in 5 deaths globally. And as the new analyses in this report show, a significant number of these deaths can be attributed to fossil fuel subsidies. Agriculture is the largest user of land worldwide, feeding the world and employing 1 billion people, including 78 percent of the world's poor. But it is subsidized in ways that promote inefficiency, inequity, and unsustainability. Subsidies are shown to drive the deterioration of water quality and increase water scarcity by inc
