Climate change and, more generally, environmental damage have quantifiable economic and health costs, which weigh on long-term growth and well-being. If left unchecked, climate change is projected to decrease global GDP by 0.7 to 2.5 % by 2060. At the same time, the costs to society of air pollution already appear substantial–equivalent to some 4% of GDP across OECD countries and even higher in some rapidly developing economies.

The OECD Secretary-General, Mr. Angel Gurría, chaired several high-level panels; the OECD actively participated through a series of events, the launch of four new reports and by taking part in a number of workshops and seminars throughout the forum. ‌

This series is designed to make available to a wider readership selected studies on environmental issues prepared for use within the OECD. Two recent working papers: sustainable Consumption Dilemmas and Tender Instruments: Programme Participation and Impact in Australian Conservation Tenders, Grants and Volunteer Organisations.

2015 is a critical year for humanity. Our civilisation has never faced such existential risks as those associated with global warming, biodiversity erosion and resource depletion. Our societies have never had such an opportunity to advance prosperity and eradicate poverty. We have the choice to either finally embark on the journey towards sustainability or to stick to our current destructive “business-as-usual” pathway.

Poland has combined robust economic growth with reducing some of the pressures on its environment since it joined the EU in 2004. It has also brought environmental laws closer to European norms. Poland now needs to lessen its economy’s reliance on fossil fuels and make growth greener, according to a new OECD report.

A transition to a low carbon economy is achievable, but will require a concerted, more consistent effort across a range of policy areas, from tradeable permits to stringent norms.

According to shocking new research by Oxfam, the world’s richest 1% would, on current trends, own more than half the world’s wealth by 2016.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today called on OECD governments to ensure that a series of major summits this year result in a new era of sustainable development.

The year 2015 is the International Year of Soils. It is also the year the UN Millennium Development Goals launched in 2000 expire, and are to be replaced by Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The 17 goals and their 169 targets cover a vast range of issues, but care for the soil is the foundation of sustainability and is central to practically every SDG.

Developing countries are increasingly moving towards more strategic national policies and plans, the effectiveness of which will depend upon proper assessment of a given country’s vulnerability to climate change. This report draws upon emerging monitoring and evaluation practices across developed and developing countries to identify four tools that countries can draw upon in their own assessment frameworks.

Is it possible for 9 billion people to live on this planet and enjoy a good standard of living? And on such a planet, is it possible for economies to grow, businesses to profit, and communities to prosper without undermining the natural systems that support all life? And without destroying some of the planet’s last great wildernesses?

The international discussions under way in the course of this vital year–including July’s Finance for Development Meeting in Addis Ababa, the agreement of a new set of universal Sustainable Development Goals at the UN in September and the climate change summit in Paris at the end of 2015–represent a remarkable and unprecedented opportunity to establish what might be called a “Magna Carta for the earth” for our times.

In his remarks to the Business & Climate Summit, the Secretary-General said that business lies at the heart of what we need to achieve on climate action. If Governments produce clear, credible and coherent national policies and clear messages and signals, the full transformative power of business, markets and human ingenuity will be unleashed.

The OECD hosted a workshop on green investment banks on 20 May 2015. It built upon discussions of green banks at the OECD Green Investment Financing Fora (May 2015 and June 2014) and continued international dialogue on the experiences of green banks. The workshop welcomed 9 different green banks, public financial institutions, NGOs, the private sector and over 20 countries interested in the green bank model.

OECD can work its hardest to raise awareness on the truths of climate change, but the world won’t see developments in green technology and infrastructure unless we have eager investors backing up investment and research and development in low-carbon technologies.

In January of this year I visited the Mexican state of Tabasco– a state crossed by rivers and facing the Gulf of Mexico. The state’s population has doubled over the past 30 years and its economy relies heavily on oil and natural gas resources. It has its challenges as well: unemployment, poverty and a lack of resources.

Over the coming months, the world will be preparing for what is heralded as an historic meeting for climate change negotiations. If the right decisions are taken–with the aim of making a sustainable energy future a reality–we will be able to reap enormous, multiple benefits deriving not only from decarbonisation, but also from reduced air pollution, better energy access, energy security and economic prosperity.

For many years one of the predominant conventional wisdoms in both business and policymaking circles was that cutting greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions necessitates a sacrifice in economic growth.

For the past decade or so, there has been a lot of debate in policy circles on how to get governments and the private sector to work together more collaboratively in order to catalyse the transition to green growth. The good news is that in that time many factors have come together to make this more of a reality.

Challenging free trade orthodoxy is a heavy lift in our political culture; anything that has been in place for that long takes on an air of inevitability. But, critical as these shifts are, they are not enough to lower emissions in time. To do that, we will need to confront a logic even more entrenched than free trade–the logic of indiscriminate economic growth.

"We absolutely should and must demand a strong deal in Paris". Read the full blog by Chris Barrett, Executive Director, Finance and Economics, European Climate Foundation, and former Australian Ambassador to the OECD.

Ministers from OECD’s 34 member countries today welcomed the new OECD Principles on Water Governance, which set standards for more effective, efficient and inclusive design and implementation of water policies, and encouraged governments to put them into action.

The OECD’s Annual Meeting at Ministerial Level reinforced member governments’ support across a broad range of key OECD work.

We could spend World Environment Day warning of the doom and gloom of future Earth, but considering how much we have done that already, that’s not going to get us very far as we approach this year’s COP21 in Paris. Instead, we are going to give you a taste on what we do here at the OECD headquarters to help save the environment, taking our own medicine on what we prescribe to governments.

Today, more than 22% of global emissions are covered by a carbon price. Almost 40 countries and over 20 cities, states and provinces use carbon pricing mechanisms or are planning to implement them. The OECD recommends that countries make carbon pricing the cornerstone of climate policy. Price signals sent to consumers, producers and investors alike need to be consistent and facilitate the gradual phase-out of fossil fuel emissions.

The meeting was held on 18 June 2015 in Chisinau, Moldova. The key objective was to discuss the progress made on the programme implementation and to agree the work plan for 2015-16.

Governments are under-utilising taxation as a tool to curb the environmental consequences of energy use, foregoing revenue and weakening their attack on the principal source of greenhouse gas emissions responsible for climate change and air pollution, according to new OECD analysis.

This paper refines indicators to measure innovation in environment-related technologies, drawing on recent methodological advances that allow a more accurate assessment of environment-related innovation in a broader range of countries. Three indicators are discussed: an indicator of technology development; an indicator of international collaboration in technology development and an indicator of technology diffusion.

Governments should rethink the role of coal in energy supply as the scale of new investments being made in unabated coal-fired electricity generation poses the most urgent threat to our climate, OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurría said today.

Taxes are potentially among the most effective ways of cutting pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, but they are currently – with very few exceptions – underused; and even where used, they are frequently designed in a sub-optimal way.

Building on the experience of OECD countries, this report sets out how the latest economic evidence and tools can enable better policy making for climate change adaptation.

The recent droughts in Brazil’s Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo states have exposed the need to shift from crisis management to effective risk governance of the country’s water resources, according to a new OECD report.

This joint OECD/France conference to be held in Paris on 16 September 2015 will aim to lay the foundation for the international effort which is needed on public policy options and economic incentives to support food security, the fight against climate change and adaptation to climate change while integrating soil issues in that effort.

Raw materials are essential for the global economy and future development depends on their continued supply. Like fossil fuels, minerals are non-renewable. In general, their deposits in the Earth’s crust are also geographically clustered, making security of supply a potential risk. The purpose of this report is to perform for the first time an analysis of critical minerals for the OECD countries as a whole.

Government support to fossil fuel consumption and production in OECD countries and key emerging economies remains high, at USD 160-200 billion annually, according to a new OECD report. This support is hampering global efforts to curb emissions and combat climate change.

Cost-benefit analyses and other quantitative appraisals are used in many countries to support decision-making in public policy, including investment projects in sectors such as transport and energy. This paper discusses the range of approaches which can be employed to value changes in carbon emissions in policy appraisalsand presents some case studies and a survey of current practice in OECD countries.

The current Volkswagen diesel emissions scandal highlights the difficult reality of making the transition to a low-carbon economy. It also highlights the growing need for governments to make smart policies, based on actual costs.

Public and private finance mobilised by developed countries for climate action in developing countries reached USD 62 billion in 2014, up from USD 52 billion in 2013 and making an average of USD 57 billion annually over the 2013-14 period, according to a new OECD study in collaboration with Climate Policy Initiative (CPI).

It has become the accepted wisdom that meeting the global climate challenge will require zero net greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by the end of this century. Read the full op-ed by Gabriela Ramos, OECD Special Advisor to the OECD Secretary-General.

More than 150 countries have submitted their post-2020 Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Such contributions are vital to the #COP21 climate change conference in Paris this December.

Advanced and emerging economies have made progress in addressing climate change, yet most are on a trajectory that would see them fall short of their mitigation goals. Governments need to significantly accelerate their efforts and strengthen their climate change policies.

"Back to the Future" festivities marking 21 October 2015 as the date Marty and Doc travel to the future in the famous film with Michael J. Fox. If only we had a similar time machine allowing us to travel to 2045 to see what the climate has in store to better decide what policies to adopt today. Alas, no time machine has been invented yet but, in the absence of such a cool device, we can rely on climate and economic models...

Brazil has made remarkable social and economic progress in the past two decades, but must now overcome important challenges if it is to put its economy on a stronger, fairer, greener growth trajectory, according to two new reports from the OECD.

How have CO2 and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions changed since 1990? Three different visuals tell three very different stories (click on them to see full size). Which perspective offers the most clarity?

To increase transparency and improve understanding of different countries’ situations, the OECD has developed an interactive map that brings to life key climate change mitigation statistics and policy settings. The webinar on Monday 16 November 2015, 15h00-16h30 (Paris time) consisted of a summary of the main messages of the report "Climate Change Mitigation: Policies and Progress" and a demonstration of the interactive tool.

Average global temperature could rise by 3-6 degrees Celsius by 2100 if we don’t act. To keep the rise to 2 degrees Celsius, we need to have net zero emissions by the end of the century. Emissions would need to peak by 2030 to give us a fighting chance of achieving this.

This report on climate change disclosure in G20 countries takes stock of mandatory climate change reporting schemes in G20 countries and identifies commonalities and divergences between the various schemes.

Participants to the Arrangement on Officially Supported Export Credits have agreed new rules on official support for coal-fired power plants, including restrictions on official export credits for the least efficient coal-fired power plants, the OECD announced today.

This project is unique in that it explores how national-level policies impact household behaviour. Topics include energy use, food consumption, personal transport choices, waste generation and recycling, and water consumption. Yet the project does not specifically discuss the term “ecological footprint,” and it retains a macro-policy focus, targeting governments interested in learning which policies to implement.

Tackling climate change will require action in three key areas. First, we must strengthen carbon pricing and remove fossil fuel subsidies. Second, we must remove barriers to green investment. And third, we must align policies across the economy to leave fossil fuels behind and improve transparency on climate finance.