The OECD’s latest Environmental Performance Review of Spain finds the country has decreased the energy and carbon intensity of its economy, reduced industrial pollution and cut per-capita waste generation since 2000.

If you’ve just visited the room with no windows and enjoyed the effortless push of the “deposit disposal button” followed by a stream of fresh, clean tap water to wash your hands, you could well be in an OECD city

Business brief. Overcoming the challenges of an arid climate and scarce natural water reserves has always been a vital necessity for the growth of Israel’s population and economy since the founding of the state. This has led to continuous improvements in Israel’s water sector, through innovations in technologies, practices and long-term plans.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

Following is a list of OECD activities and events during the COP21 UN Conference on Climate Change. You can visit the OECD Pavilion in Hall 3 (Blue Zone) at any time to attend events (complete list of OECD events at COP21) and browse OECD reports & dataviz on climate change and the environment. Please contact Catherine Bremer (catherine.bremer@oecd.org, 0603 483456) for interview requests.

The world looks to the Paris Conference of the Parties to deliver a new climate agreement that transforms our development pathway. Success at COP21 can drive and accelerate the transition to a cleaner, healthier and more secure future, locking-in sustainable economic growth and development.

Countries everywhere have committed to fighting climate change but many are still subsidising fossil fuels, investing little in green technologies, failing to put a realistic price on carbon, and allowing transport emissions to grow. Much more can and should be done.

Outdoor air pollution is a major determinant of health worldwide. The objective of this paper is to inform the development of improved estimates of the social costs of human morbidity impacts resulting from outdoor air pollution in two components; namely to develop a core set of pollutant-health end-points to be covered when estimating the costs of morbidity, and to review current estimates of the cost of morbidity from air pollution.

This paper presents the first empirical analysis of the macroeconomic relationship between environmentally related taxes and inequality in income sources. The analysis also investigates whether this relationship differs between countries which have implemented environmental tax reforms (ETRs) and ones which have not.

Countries that implement stringent environmental policies do not lose export competitiveness when compared against countries with more moderate regulations, according to a new OECD study that examines trade in manufactured goods between advanced and emerging economies.

The natural environment provides crucial inputs and services for economic development, but its role for productivity growth is insufficiently explored. Environmental scarcities can pose a drag on productivity growth and a risk for its sustainability.

The Paris Agreement is an unprecedented achievement in the fight against climate change. A record number of countries came together, first in the French capital for the COP21 conference in November-December 2015 and then formally to sign the agreement at the UN on 22 April 2016, to ensure that future generations enjoy a stable, healthy and habitable world.

This paper provides an in-depth review of experiences and insights from mainstreaming biodiversity and development in South Africa. More specifically, it describes how biodiversity considerations have been mainstreamed in five key sectors/areas, namely: land use planning, mining, water, infrastructure, and the agricultural sector.

The theme of Biodiversity Day this year is “Mainstreaming biodiversity; sustaining people and their livelihoods”. According to World Bank figures, “natural capital accounts for an estimated 30% of total wealth in low income countries compared to only 2% in OECD countries”.

The OECD will convene its 6th Workshop on Regional trade agreements and the environment on 10 June 2016, at the OECD Headquarters. The focus of the workshop will be on chapters of regional trade agreement (RTAs) that are concerned mainly with issues other than the environment, such as market access, investment, or government procurement, TBT, regulatory coherence or dispute settlement.

Water is linked to many economic activities, and there are complex channels through which water affects economic growth. The purpose of this report is to provide background information useful for a quantitative global assessment of the impact of water scarcity on growth using a multi-region, recursive-dynamic, Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model.

The world must ramp up its efforts to use natural resources more sustainably and conserve biological diversity and the ecosystems on which we depend for human life, the OECD today told participants at the COP13 Convention on Biological Diversity in Cancun, Mexico.

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.

This paper surveys a broad range of studies and highlights the main findings of the empirical literature regarding business finance and productivity.

Estonia needs to move faster to reduce its dependence on oil shale so it can advance towards a greener economy and reduce air pollution and waste generation, according to a new OECD report.

This paper describes MOLES 1.0, an integrated land-use and transport model developed with Object-Oriented Programming principles in order to combine selected characteristics from Spatial Computable General Equilibrium and microsimulation models. MOLES 1.0 models the links between urban land use, mobility patterns, urban economic activities and their environmental impacts, in particular air pollution and emissions of greenhouse gases.

We usually speak of “the energy transition” or “the transition to a low-carbon economy.” But this expression comes short of the actual phenomenon. In fact, we are in the midst of an industrial revolution that is completely shaking up the energy industry and is bound to disrupt others as well, such as transportation.

Climate change is a clear and undeniable challenge that requires a global response. The Paris Agreement represents the careful crafting of a collective effort of over 190 countries to meet this challenge.

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.

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.

The OECD’s third Environmental Performance Review of Switzerland finds that despite being one of the greenest OECD countries in terms of energy supply, greenhouse gas emissions and domestic material consumption per unit of GDP, Switzerland urgently needs to address pressures on its biodiversity.

One focus of tomorrow’s One Planet Summit, organised by President Macron, is “to determine how those working in public and private finance can innovate to support and accelerate our common efforts to fight climate change.”

Our response to the climate challenge will define our collective future for generations to come. We must act. We must act swiftly, collectively, and decisively.

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.

On the occasion of the One Planet Summit, read our latest OECD Observer articles focusing on the challenges and opportunities for climate action, particularly in the area of green finance and investment.

A reaffirmed commitment to fighting climate change has set Canada on a greener course, but the country needs to quickly implement planned measures to reduce the carbon intensity of its energy industry, particularly in oil sands, and green its transport sector in order to progress towards its 2030 emissions goals, according to a new OECD report.

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.