Some of the world's richest countries are spending billions of pounds each year subsidising fossil fuels despite pledging to turn off the tap completely by 2025.
The G7 nations - Canada, US, France, Germany, UK, Japan and Italy - collectively spend more than 70 billion pounds ($A123 billion) annually supporting oil, gas and coal, according to a new report.
The G7 has been committed to ending subsidies to fossil fuels since 2009, but at current spending levels it risks missing its target of phasing them out by 2025, the researchers said.
The Overseas Development Institute (ODI), Oil change International (OCI), the Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) and the Natural Resources Defence Council ranked the G7 countries against seven different criteria to measure their commitment to meeting their pledge.
Criteria included progress made in ending support to fossil fuel exploration and extraction, fossil fuel-based power and fossil fuel use in industry and transport.
Transparency was also considered, such as a government's reporting on how much it spends on fossil fuels and the mechanisms in place to ensure it meets its targets. The team also looked at the number of pledges and commitments each government had made to cut its spending on fossil fuel subsidies.
France came out on top - primarily down to its progress on fossil fuel production and power through measures such as stopping handing out new licences for coal and gas exploration.
The US came last because of its support for exploration and production of fossil fuels and the Trump administration's decision to backtrack on previous pledges to end support for fossil fuels.
The report emphasised that significant progress has been made, particularly in subsidy cuts to the coal industry and an end to public financing of coal-fired power stations.
But it warned that without much more stringent measures, the 2025 target to end fossil fuel subsidies across the seven countries would be missed.
"While some progress has been made in recent years, overall it is a grim picture with not one country scoring highly," lead author Shelagh Whitley, head of the Climate and Energy Programme at ODI, said.
