Current carbon prices are falling short of the levels needed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions driving climate change, but even moderate price increases could have a significant impact, according to new OECD research.

This Global Forum, held on 24-25 October 2016, aimed to shed light on the links between environment and economic growth, and the toolkits to quantify these links. It provided a platform to explore how a well-managed natural environment can contribute to economic growth and how an effective and efficient regulatory system can best be designed?

The UN Climate Change Conference (COP22) was held in Bab Ighli, Marrakech, Morocco from 7-18 November 2016. Check out the OECD's contributions and our programme of side events to the conference.

This study was one of the first attempts to evaluate and quantify the benefits of transboundary co-operation between Georgia and Azerbaijan. A specific framework for inventorying these benefits, taking into account all the different dimensions of transboundary water management, was built and applied to the major transboundary water bodies.

Developing countries are disproportionately affected by the rising trend of losses from climate-related extreme events. This paper uses case studies of Colombia and Senegal to examine how countries are using financial protection as part of their approaches to managing climate risks; it also identifies emerging priorities for development co-operation providers in supporting financial protection against climate risks.

This report provides an analysis of how climate change damages may affect international trade in the coming decades and how international trade can help limit the costs of climate change. It analyses the impacts of climate change on trade considering both direct effects on infrastructure and transport routes and the indirect economic impacts resulting from changes in endowments and production.

Integrating measures to tackle climate change into regular economic policy will have a positive impact on economic growth over the medium and long term, according to a new OECD report prepared in the context of the German Presidency of the G20.

International cooperation is now more critical than ever, OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurría said following a G20 Leader’s Summit marked both by controversy but also advances on a range of policies to tackle global challenges.

This paper presents updated results for the cost of ambient air pollution in 41 countries: the 6 major emerging economies known as the BRIICS – Brazil, Russia, India, Indonesia, China and South Africa – and the 35 OECD member countries.

Countries need to look beyond narrow national policy agendas to curb global emissions and reduce climate risks, OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurría said today. Governments should seize the flexibility built into the 2015 Paris Agreement to increase and accelerate their emissions-cutting ambitions.

Lean more on OECD work on climate and programme of side events during the 2017 UN Climate Change Conference, under the Presidency of Fiji, held from 6 to 17 November at the World Conference Center Bonn, in Germany.

Air pollution in Delhi has been so bad this November that the Indian Medical Association declared a public health emergency. According to the latest Global Burden of Disease study published in The Lancet, outdoor air pollution caused more than a million premature deaths in India in 2016, whose cost, according to OECD estimates, amounts to more than USD 800 billion. Read the full blog.

This paper details a methodology for calculating the extent of terrestrial and marine protected areas recorded in the World Database on Protected Areas by country, type and IUCN management categories. The method allows the data on protected areas to be summarised in a harmonised and more detailed way than is currently available, without requiring any additional reporting by countries.

OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurría announced today at the One Planet Summit in Paris the launch of the “Paris Collaborative on Green Budgeting”, a strategic initiative to assess and drive the alignment of national budgetary processes with the Paris Agreement and other environmental goals.

This paper analyses the reform undertaken by Iceland to avert a looming crisis and restore fish stocks to sustainable levels; and outlines the process involved in designing and implementing this reform. It also reflects on the challenges encountered and the environmental, economic and social impacts of the reform. This country study draws on the OECD report "The Political Economy of Biodiversity Policy Reform".

This paper summarises efforts in two West African countries – Mauritania and Guinea-Bissau – to mobilise international finance to sustain the marine biodiversity upon which fisheries depend, and to establish conservation trust funds. The countries study draws on the 2017 OECD report The Political Economy of Biodiversity Policy Reform.

We are losing diversity of life on Earth at an alarming rate – one tenth of the world’s terrestrial biodiversity and one third of freshwater biodiversity has been wiped out since 1970. And we’re on course to lose another 10% of terrestrial species by 2050.

This paper reviews the existing literature on modelling the macroeconomic consequences of the transition to a circular economy. It provides insights into the current state of the art on modelling policies to improve resource efficiency and the transition to a circular economy by examining 24 modelling-based assessments of a circular economy transition.

The Paris Collaborative on Green Budgeting was launched by the OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurría at the One Planet Summit in Paris on 12 December 2017. It aims to design new, innovative tools to assess and drive improvements in the alignment of national expenditure and revenue processes with climate and other environmental goals.

Hungary has made progress in greening its economy and cutting emissions, but it needs to speed up efforts to replace fossil fuels with renewable energy sources, improve energy efficiency in buildings and promote sustainable transport, according to a new OECD Review.

The Czech economy is thriving, with robust employment, expanding exports and falling government debt. Efforts should now focus on boosting workforce skills and innovation to improve labour supply and productivity, further reduce poverty and inequality, and green the economy, according to two new OECD reports.

Governments need to raise carbon prices much faster if they are to meet their commitments on cutting emissions and slowing the pace of climate change under the Paris Agreement, according to a new OECD report.

This Policy Paper comprises the Background Report prepared by the OECD for the G7 Environment, Energy and Oceans Ministers (19-21 September, Canada). It provides an overview of current plastics production and use, the environmental impacts that this is generating and identifies the reasons for currently low plastics recycling rates, as well as what can be done about it.

This Policy Paper comprises an Issue Brief and Background Report prepared by the OECD for the G7 Environment, Energy and Oceans Ministers (19-21 September 2018, Canada). It outlines the rising risks faced by coastal communities, which are being exacerbated by climate change; and shows how governments can harness innovation to help improve resilience and emphasises the need for close engagement with coastal communities.

4-5 October 2018, Germany - Jointly organised by the OECD and the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, the conference aimed to discuss innovative applications of blended finance as the strategic use of development finance for the mobilisation of finance towards sustainable development in developing countries in the water sector.

Public support for metal extraction and processing has received little attention relative to that for the agriculture, energy, or fisheries sectors. This report addresses this knowledge gap by mapping out the most common forms of support provided for primary metals (produced from mineral ores) and secondary metals (produced from scrap).

The transition towards a resource efficient and circular economy has linkages with international trade through the emergence of global value chains as well as trade in second-hand goods, end-of-life products, secondary materials and waste. This paper highlights the interaction of international trade and the circular economy in order to map out potential issues to address and to guide further research areas to explore on this topic.

The world’s consumption of raw materials is set to nearly double by 2060 as the global economy expands and living standards rise, placing twice the pressure on the environment that we are seeing today, according to a new OECD report.

OECD Deputy Secretary General, Mr. Masamichi Kono, and Shardul Agrawala, Head, Environment and Economy Integration Division, OECD Environment Directorate, presents the key findings of the forthcoming OECD report "Global Material Resources Outlook to 2060: Economic Drivers and Environmental Consequences".

17-22 November 2018, Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt. The OECD actively participated in this Conference through an official OECD side event and by taking part in a number of workshops, seminars and other events throughout the conference. Read more on the OECD side-event, participation at the High-Level Segment and the OECD work on biodiversity.

This paper explores the consequences on the labour markets of structural changes induced by decarbonisation policies. These policies are likely going to have consequences on labour-income distribution given i) existing rigidities in the labour markets, and ii) their different impacts on sectors and on job categories.

22 November 2018, London - Hosted by the Department of Geography and Environment, this panel reflected on the use of cost benefit analysis (CBA) and took stock of recent developments in environmental CBA and the challenges this presents to policy makers. The panel was comprised of some of the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) authors of the CBA report published by OECD as well as policy practitioners.

This report investigates the effects of select climate policies, non-climate policies, as well as political economy factors on the decarbonisation of electricity in OECD countries from 2000 to 2015. Effects are analysed on the three phases of decarbonisation: (1) increasing the share of renewables installed, (2) increasing the use of renewables in generation, and (3) reducing the emissions from electricity.

Public climate finance from developed to developing countries totalled USD 56.7 billion in 2017, up 17% from USD 48.5 billion in 2016, according to new data compiled by the OECD.

2-15 December 2018, Katowice, Poland - The key objective of this year’s event was to finalise the "Paris Rulebook". Find out about the full OECD participation through a series of side events, publications, and by taking part in a number of workshops, seminars and other events throughout the conference.

Meeting the temperature goals of the Paris Agreement requires a transformational change in our infrastructure systems. This working paper aims to shed light on the extent to which current electricity generation projects under construction at the global level - the "pipeline" - are consistent with what a low-carbon transition requires.

At a time when nationalism is rising and individual countries are facing a growing array of threats, it is critical that we recognize a shared and unprecedented global challenge: We need to double our infrastructure in the next decade to meet global development needs, while achieving a systematic shift away from business-as-usual, carbon-intensive options to low-emissions, resilient infrastructure, to avoid catastrophic climate change.

An update of the OECD database on transboundary movements of wastes is now available for download. Since 1992, transboundary movements of recyclable wastes between OECD countries are regulated by the Council Decision C(2001)107, which was established by the OECD Council, and designed as an agreement under Article 11 of the Basel Convention.

This paper assesses the effect of environmental regulations on plant survival and emissions using data on the extent of vintage differentiation of regulations (VDR5) regarding air pollution emission limit values for existing and new coal-fired power plants. Focussing on NOx and SOx emissions, the paper applies survival analysis techniques on a sample of generating units across 31 OECD and non-member countries between 1962 and 2012.

This paper shows how women and men may use infrastructure differently according to their needs, social roles or preferences; and provides a framework to help countries align their infrastructure policies and projects with other societal and environmental goals, including supporting gender equality.

The OECD welcomes the release of voluntary G20 peer reviews of Indonesia and Italy’s efforts to phase out and rationalise their inefficient fossil-fuel subsidies at the 2nd meeting of G20 Energy Transitions Working Group under the Japanese Presidency in Toyama, Japan.

Mr. Angel Gurría, Secretary-General of the OECD, will be in Mexico on 2-3 May 2019 to present the 2019 OECD Economic Survey of Mexico.

The Latvian economy is thriving, with strong job growth driving convergence with more advanced economies. Efforts should now focus on reducing inequality, responding to the challenges posed by population ageing and making growth stronger, inclusive and greener, according to two new OECD reports.

Climate change and outdoor air pollution are two of the most challenging environmental issues that modern society faces. This paper presents the first global analysis of the joint economic consequences of climate change and outdoor air pollution to 2060, in the absence of new policies to address these challenges.

Policy instruments can be applied to improve the sustainability of plastics, including regulations, market-based instruments, information and voluntary tools. The report reviews the use of these instruments, provides good practice examples, such as product taxes and charges, eco-design standards, extended producer responsibility and environmental product labels, as well as discussing opportunities for their future applications.

Climate finance provided and mobilised by developed countries for climate action in developing countries reached USD 71.2 billion in 2017, up from USD 58.6 billion in 2016, according to new estimates from the OECD.

Taxing polluting sources of energy is an effective way to curb emissions that harm the planet and human health, and the income generated can be used to ease the low-carbon transition for vulnerable households. Yet 70% of energy-related CO2 emissions from advanced and emerging economies are entirely untaxed, offering little incentive to move to cleaner energy, according to a new OECD report.

The challenges we face in our era of rapid, disruptive change are daunting, but we are starting to develop the tools, techniques and concepts to meet them, OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurría said.

National development banks (NDBs) and development finance institutions are poised to play a role in bridging the investment gap for climate-compatible infrastructure in developing countries. This paper highlights the role of NDBs drawing from case studies of the Brazilian Banco Nacional de Desenvolvimento Econômico e Social and the Development Bank of Southern Africa.

This paper reviews ex-post empirical assessments on the impact of carbon pricing on competitiveness in OECD and G20 countries in the electricity and industrial sectors. Most of these assessments find no statistically significant effects of carbon pricing or energy prices on different dimensions of competitiveness, including net imports, foreign direct investments, turnover, value added, employment, profits, productivity, and innovation.