OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurría will present a major address on the Organisation’s latest analysis of climate change, investment and energy policies in London on Wednesday 9 October, at 10:30am.

Credible and consistent carbon pricing must be the cornerstone of government actions to tackle climate change, according to a new OECD report.

The OECD is to review its chemical hazard assessment programme with the aim of providing a more specialised service for member countries from 2015.

The Government of Israel and the OECD co-organised an international conference on "Joining Forces to Develop Smart, Cost-Effective Urban Water Utilities: Policy, Economics, Environment, Regulation and Technologies" on 23 October 2013, in Tel Aviv.

Carbon taxes and emission trading systems are the most cost-effective means of reducing CO2 emissions, and should be at the centre of government efforts to tackle climate change,according to a new OECD study.

This year the United Nations has officially declared 19 November World Toilet Day to raise awareness of the sanitation crisis faced by millions every day. Similarly, the OECD places great importance on the issue of water and sanitation. It has undertaken significant work on the issue to help promote global awareness, encourage action and propose viable solutions.

Issues related to water and sanitation are a priority for the OECD. A number of people working at the OECD are also involved through our War on Hunger Group. For example, last year the Group funded a project in Mozambique to reduce diarrhoea by at least 25% in children under the age of five by training in hygiene and changing current practices.

In the two decades since apartheid ended, South Africa has made impressive strides to catch up with – and in some cases surpass -- the developed world’s environmental standards.

The 2013 Forum was held on 5-6 December and discussed how governments can improve their investment policy framework to reduce the risk and attract long-term private finance in support of green growth.

Colombia has made progress towards eliminating fuel and diesel subsidies and reducing discretionary spaces allowing for artificially low fuel prices, but challenges remain. This paper discusses the political economy of fuel subsidies in the country to understand why reform has been so slow.

The Netherlands is a global pioneer in water management with a long history of containing flood risks and reclaiming land from the sea. Yet it will need to adapt its water governance policies to meet the looming challenges of shifting demographics, regional development and climate change, according to an OECD report.

A new OECD report describes what Ethiopia and Columbia are doing to sustain development in a changing climate.

The OECD’s 34 member countries today affirmed their common resolve to work towards a deal on combating climate change at the COP21 talks in Paris in 2015. OECD accession countries Colombia and Latvia joined the statement issued at the Organisation’s annual Ministerial Council Meeting, attended by finance, economy, trade and other ministers.

Twenty years ago climate change was viewed as just an environmental issue. Today it is squarely an economic issue. Climate change poses significant risks to our economic systems that could result in very large damages. To mitigate these risks we need to radically transform our economies and societies to stop global warming.

For World Environment Day on 5 June 2014, the OECD Environment Directorate looks at how we use and manage natural resources.

This document provides a detailed technical description of the ENV-Linkages model. The OECD ENV-Linkages Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model is an economic model that describes how economic activities are inter-linked across several macroeconomic sectors and regions. It links economic activity to environmental pressure, specifically to emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs).

This paper presents a framework to include feedbacks from climate impacts on the economy in integrated assessment models. The proposed framework uses a production function approach, which links climate impacts to key variables and parameters used in the specification of economic activity. The paper pays particular attention to the challenges of distinguishing between damages and the costs of adapting to climate change.

Have you ever wondered who was paying to recycle that plastic bottle you just threw away?

Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) is increasingly recognised worldwide as an efficient waste management policy to help improve recycling and reduce landfilling of products and materials. This Forum took place on 17-19 June 2014, in Tokyo, Japan, to identify key challenges and opportunities for further developing EPR policies.

In many areas today, there is no such thing as a “natural” landscape. Thousands of years of farming have selected and encouraged some species, marginalised or eliminated others. The land itself has been altered by ploughing, enclosure, herding and other human interventions. We may feel that we have tamed Nature. Reports like this new one from the OECD remind us of our ignorance and warn us about our arrogance.

This Global Forum plays an important role as the tool for on-going dialogue on responsible business conduct. I am pleased to announce that today, Ministers from over 20 countries are coming together to discuss how to integrate responsibility considerations throughout government policies. Their work will contribute to protect internationally recognised fundamental rights and to ensure good governance, fair regulations, and transparency.

Climate change and biodiversity loss have increasingly become the subject of international policy deliberations. It is widely recognised that strong and effective international co-operation is required to address these issues. Co-operation in science and technology between developed and developing countries is considered to be of particular importance.

The paper reviews a number of commercial and public data sources to examine their potential for increasing coverage and understanding of the volume and characteristics of private climate finance beyond renewable energy projects. Such information is needed to assess progress towards the global transition to low-carbon, climate-resilient economies.

Education plays a crucial role in raising awareness of environmental challenges and shaping the attitudes and behaviours that can make a difference. A recently released Trends Shaping Education Spotlight looks at the role of education in both preparing and providing our citizens with the skills needed for a sustainable and productive future.

Iceland must balance growth in power and tourism industries with nature conservation, OECD says Iceland has one of the world’s most pristine natural environments and its glaciers, volcanoes and hot underground springs bring major economic benefits via renewable energy and tourism.

Angel Gurría and Michael R. Bloomberg reaffirmed today their commitment to support international cities’ efforts to lead in the global fight against climate change — and called for national support to make this happen.

The meeting was held on 8 October 2014 in Minsk, Belarus. The key objective was to discuss the progress made on the programme's implementation and to agree on priorities for 2015.

The G20 needs to go structural, social, and green! With fiscal and monetary policy room nearly exhausted, structural reforms are the best choices, sometimes the only choice. The OECD battle cry in this regard has been unchanged since 2008: “go structural!”.

Angel Gurría, Secretary-General of the OECD congratulated the newly elected President of Indonesia, Joko Widodo, for taking a bold first step in his economic reform agenda by substantially cutting fuel subsidies.

Held on 27-28 November 2014, the forum focused on four areas that can contribute to more integrated policy making. Topics for discussion included the need to understand long-term impacts of the nexus on growth; ways to improve coherence between national, regional and local planning and priorities; the importance of promoting private sector investment in the nexus; and....

As environmental pressures continue to rise, governments throughout the OECD area have not been sitting back. If anything, the stringency of their policy measures has been increasing on the whole, not least to combat pollution and climate change. And as the evidence shows, stringent environmental policies can be introduced without hurting overall productivity.

In today’s hard times, policy-makers can find it difficult to sell their environmental policies. To many, these policies represent a burden on the economy.

Climate policy and competitiveness issues have created a new need for international co-ordination, beyond the scope of our current frameworks. There is no need to trade economic growth for environmental stringency. Environmentally stringent policies are an incentive for greater efficiencies which leading edge companies can easily achieve.

When considering a by-product, can this material or waste be used in another industry or in another manufacturing process instead of putting it into the environment, moving “from waste to resources” as the OECD says?

Rapid population growth, ageing infrastructure and new weather risks are straining the ability of cities in OECD countries to provide clean water and to protect against floods and droughts, according to a new OECD report. Cities will need large-scale investment and more effective tariffs and taxes to pay for upgrades to water systems.

Water resources allocation determines who is able to use water resources, how, when and where. Capturing information from 27 OECD countries and key partner economies, the report presents key findings from the OECD Survey of Water Resources Allocation and case studies of successful allocation reform.

Concerns around potential losses of competitiveness as a result of unilateral action on carbon pricing are often central for policy makers contemplating the introduction of such instruments. This paper is a review of literature on ex post empirical evaluations of the impacts of carbon prices on indicators of competitiveness as employed in the literature, including employment, output or exports, at different levels of aggregation.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.