October 19, 2026
First comprehensive global analysis finds the hidden costs to governments and society run four to 12 times larger than the subsidies themselves.
YEREVAN, Armenia (Oct. 19, 2026) — A new analysis from Conservation International puts a price on one of the least-visible obstacles to protecting nature: not just the trillions governments spend each year on subsidies that drive deforestation, overfishing and pollution, but the far larger bill — up to $24.7 trillion a year — that the resulting damage leaves behind.
The new report, Paying Twice: The Fiscal Case for Reforming Nature-Harming Subsidies, offers the first comprehensive global review of those hidden environmental and social damage costs. It estimates them at $11 trillion to $24.7 trillion a year, four to 12 times the $2.1 trillion to $2.7 trillion governments spend annually on subsidies that harm nature. By comparison, governments spend just $210 billion a year on finance that benefits nature.
In effect, governments and society pay twice: once to fund the subsidies that degrade forests, soils, fisheries and other ecosystems, and again to absorb the cost of that damage — borne by governments, households, businesses and communities, often years later and far from where the subsidy was spent.
Those costs can take many forms: Agricultural subsidies can contribute to deforestation, nitrogen pollution and degraded soils, creating additional costs for water treatment, restoring soil health and other efforts. Fisheries subsidies can contribute to overfishing and harm coral reefs and mangroves, degrading the natural protection these ecosystems provide against storms and flooding. Fossil fuel subsidies contribute to air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, with significant costs to human health and infrastructure.
“For years, we’ve known governments spend big on subsidies that, often inadvertently, end up hurting nature. What we haven’t seen is the rest of the bill,” said Patricia Zurita, Conservation International's Executive Director and Chief External Affairs Officer. “This analysis shows that the subsidy itself is only the beginning. The damage that follows can cost many times more, yet much of it remains invisible.”
Turning commitment to action
The report launches as countries gather at the 2026 U.N. Biodiversity Conference in Yerevan, where a central question will be how to mobilize the funding needed to halt and reverse biodiversity loss. As governments review progress in implementing the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, subsidy reform will feature prominently.
Under Target 18 of the framework, governments agreed to identify and eliminate, phase out or reform incentives harmful to biodiversity by at least $500 billion a year by 2030, an effort that could help unlock progress across many other targets. But most countries are behind. A recent analysis found that only about 16 percent of countries that have reported their progress on the framework have met the first step: identifying their harmful subsidies.
Reform has proven difficult for a reason the report makes clear. Many subsidies were created to serve important goals, such as supporting farmers and fishers, creating rural jobs, or keeping energy and food affordable. The challenge is to preserve those benefits while reducing unintended harm to nature. That can be politically difficult because the benefits of subsidies are often immediate and concentrated, while the much larger environmental and social costs are spread broadly across society and often surface years later, so they rarely factor into budget decisions.
The report argues that finding new funding for nature is only part of the answer. Governments must also ask whether the trillions they already spend each year are working against their biodiversity goals, and whether that support can be redesigned to deliver better outcomes for people and nature.
“The choice isn’t between supporting people and protecting nature. Subsidy reform is about finding better ways to do both,” said Lina Barrera, Senior Vice President of the Center for Policy and Incentives at Conservation International. “Making the hidden costs of harmful subsidies visible highlights the fact that this isn’t just an environmental appeal. It’s a question of whether public money is being spent wisely. Moments like COP17, when governments are taking stock of progress, are exactly when reform becomes possible.”
Through its Accelerating Rapid Transition of Subsidies and Incentives (ARTSI) initiative — supported by the Global Environment Facility, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, André Hoffman, UBS Optimus Foundation, and an anonymous foundation — Conservation International is showing that reform doesn’t have to wait for sweeping political change. Rather than attempting to overhaul entire subsidy programs, ARTSI works with governments, financial institutions and producers to find practical openings: policies that can be redesigned within existing budget cycles, or new ones shaped from the start, to support both livelihoods and nature.
For example, in Colombia, Conservation International is working with the country’s agricultural development bank to explore how subsidized credit could encourage cacao farmers in the Amazon to protect forests and avoid expanding into new areas. The pilot is helping develop financing that is better suited to cacao’s production cycle while encouraging more sustainable practices, such as conserving forests on farms and gaining organic certification, which can increase farmers’ incomes.
In Fiji, Conservation International is working with farmers to test locally produced organic fertilizers as an alternative to imported chemical fertilizers, which can wash into coastal waters and coral reefs during heavy rains and flooding. The pilot is helping build the case for expanding government support for organic fertilizers made from local materials such as manure, fish waste and seaweed, reducing reliance on chemical fertilizers that currently receive government support.
In the Philippines, Conservation International is working with the government and other partners to protect mangrove forests as the country expands domestic salt production, including in abandoned fishponds near mangroves. The pilot is exploring how new government incentives can encourage salt production while protecting mangroves from the outset. As the Paying Twice report notes, designing new subsidies to be nature-positive from the start is cheaper and easier than paying to repair the damage later.
Together, the pilots are designed to show that meaningful reform can start now, with targeted, politically feasible changes that build the case for scaling up.
“Turning commitment on subsidy reform into action is fiscally and environmentally critical but challenging, especially because subsidies are often broad-based and benefit a significant share of the population or influential interest groups,” said Diego Mesa Puyo, CEO and Chairperson of the Global Environment Facility. “COP17 can build real momentum for faster progress in identifying inefficient and harmful subsidies, and mobilizing the support governments need to make structural reforms. Few things are as wasteful as spending public money to damage the ecosystems livelihoods and economies depend on. Reform requires that we phase out inefficient and harmful subsidies, or better target those that are essential on equity grounds, so we stop paying twice. Public policy and taxpayer money must work for people and nature, not against them.”
About Conservation International
Conservation International protects nature for the benefit of humanity. Through science, policy, fieldwork and finance, we spotlight and secure the most important places in nature for the climate, for biodiversity and for people. With offices in 30 countries and projects in more than 100 countries, Conservation International partners with governments, companies, civil society, Indigenous peoples and local communities to help people and nature thrive together. Visit Conservation.org for more