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.

This study uses a unique dataset of investment flows to analyse the role of two categories of public interventions (finance and policies) in mobilising flows of private climate finance worldwide and in the more specific context of flows to and in developing countries. The objectives are threefold. Find out more.

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.

Latest Environment Working Papers on greening household behaviour: overview of results from econometric analysis and policy implications; energy; food; transport; waste; and water.

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.

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.

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.

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.

In order to help address climate finance-related information needs under the UNFCCC, this paper explores the extent to which currently-available secondary data make it possible to estimate private finance mobilised by developed countries for climate action in developing countries.

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.

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.

This report provides a review of recent firm-level and plant-level surveys containing questions on environmental policies, innovation practices or performance which are relevant for environmental policy analysis and assessment. We specifically focus on the core element that relates environmental policies to environmental and economic performance, namely the adoption of innovative practices and environmental innovations by firms.

This report provides a brief review of how national government policies and guidelines apply to or regulate the use of environmental labelling and information schemes (ELIS) in selected OECD countries. The report reviews definitions relevant to environmental claims and identifies four types of potentially false or misleading environmental claims.

This report explores potential effects of the recent rapid growth in Environmental Labelling Information Schemes (ELIS) around the world, with a focus on the implications of ELIS multiplication for environmental effectiveness and international trade.

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.

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.

This paper reviews the latest climate projections for West Africa and considers alternative ways in which the knowledge generated from climate science can be understood in the context of preparing for an uncertain future that provides practical help for decision makers.

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.

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.

This report examines the implications of regional climate governance for international trade and conversely the implications of regional trade governance for climate change action. Regional approaches to climate change governance are discussed with a specific focus on the rise of “climate clubs” and their implications for international trade.

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.

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.

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.

This report focuses on the extent to which governments have complied with the environmental commitments made in the trade agreements to which they are a Party. The report takes a two track approach. First, a review of implementation and evaluation reports associated with environmental provisions in such agreements is performed. Second, a survey of government officials, trade negotiators and other experts is carried out.

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.

This paper aims to test whether the inclusion of environmental provisions in Regional Trade Agreements has contributed to the improvement of environmental quality among the Parties to these agreements through empirical modelling and analysis. Three indicators are considered as a proxy for environmental quality: concentrations of suspended particulate matter less than 2.5 microns, sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxide.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The large need for investments in sustainable infrastructure will require investments from the private sector, including institutional investors. This paper contributes to scaling up investments by analysing public project-level interventions for projects involving institutional investors; and presents findings from an updated database on institutional investments in environmentally sustainable infrastructure.

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.

This report provides an overview of methodologies to evaluate the effectiveness of policy instruments for biodiversity, covering impact evaluation, cost-effectiveness analysis and other more commonly used approaches. It also provides an inventory of biodiversity-relevant impact evaluation studies, across both terrestrial and marine ecosystems.

Extended producer responsibility is a policy approach that aims to increase waste recovery and recycling. Extended producer responsibility systems aim to make producers responsible for the environmental impacts of their products throughout the product chain, from design to the end-of-life phase. This report focuses on free-riding of producers or retailers, which the fast expansion of online sales in recent years has been exacerbating.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of congestion pricing on the demand for clean transport modes. It draws on an empirical analysis of the effect of Milan’s congestion charge on the use of bike sharing. The analysis indicates that congestion pricing increases daily bike-sharing use by at least 5% in the short term.

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.

Parking policies have significant environmental and economic implications, which have often been left unconsidered. This paper reviews the relevant literature to provide a deeper understanding of the main environmental and economic consequences of common parking policies, and suggest policy options to protect the environment and increase social welfare.

This report offers a guide on potential reform pathways towards sustainable agriculture water use, based on a thorough review of selected past water and agriculture reforms and extensive consultation with policy experts.

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.

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.

This paper provides a concrete example of how policy analysts can use empirical programme evaluation studies to perform ex-post assessments of environmentally related tax policies. A number of studies credibly identify causal effects of environmentally related tax policies, but do not necessarily provide all the information needed to fully inform the policy-making process.

Based on an in-depth literature review and responses to a survey among OECD member countries, this paper discusses the use of flexibility mechanisms in environmental regulations. The literature on these issues is limited, but it is clear that some such mechanisms can have important environmental and economic impacts.

Embracing new technologies that could enable drastic reductions in GHG emissions will be key to delivering low-emissions pathways for growth, but it is not always obvious what the big breakthroughs will look like. This report looks at how blockchain technology can be applied to support sustainable infrastructure investment that is aligned with climate change objectives.