Saving the Earth’s climate is sometimes compared to saving the world’s financial system following the crisis in 2007. But it’s not. The taxpayer saved the financial system by bailing it out a cost of trillions of dollars over a very short period, but there is no bailout option for the climate.

Despite large and growing investments in knowledge and innovation, productivity growth in many countries has slowed in recent years. At the same time, the urgent need for more rapid innovation (including its uptake and diffusion) in several key areas, such as in environment. This joint OECD-NBER workshop on 25-26 September 2014 will bring together academic experts to consider these challenges.

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.

Southeast Asia’s over-reliance on natural resources like oil, gas, minerals and wood for economic growth is unsustainable over the long term and is causing environmental damage that will hurt future prosperity if left unchecked, according to a new OECD report.

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.

Water security is one of the greatest challenges we face today, yet the situation has never looked more perilous. By 2050 the OECD Environmental Outlook projects that nearly 4 billion people will live in river basins under severe water stress, and global nitrogen effluents from wastewater are projected to grow by 180%. Whilst, over the same period, global demand for water is expected to grow by 55%.

This report is the third OECD review of Sweden’s environmental performance. It evaluates progress towards sustainable development and green growth, with a focus on Sweden's longstanding commitment to mitigating emissions of greenhouse gases and its management of marine ecosystem services and water.

Find out how the OECD participated in the 20th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP 20) which took place from 1-12 December in Lima, Peru.

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.

The world will need more and better targeted financing to meet the challenges of global development post-2015. This means taking important decisions not only on what qualifies as official development assistance (ODA), but also on how those flows can be most strategically used.

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.

Please join me in an ode to the giant tortoise, recently confirmed to be back from near extinction on the Galapagos Espanola Island after conservation work that began forty years ago. Whoever thought this waddly wild wonk would be a model for humans to improve environment through adept household behaviour?

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.

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.

It’s time for governments to ramp up the development of alternative energies and to nail a price onto every tonne of CO2 emitted. With COP21 taking place in Paris in November, sending the right message on climate change means gradually increasing the cost of CO2 emissions, and creating a strong economic incentive to reduce the carbon entanglement and to move towards a zero-carbon world.

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.

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

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. ‌

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

This is a watershed day for the world and especially heartening for the OECD as one of the first international bodies to call for zero net emissions in the second half of the century, for a price on carbon and for greater efforts to channel finance into the low carbon economy.

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.

Given the years of preparation – and for some OECD colleagues, a life’s work – my hope was for an enduring, ambitious text, helping us to avoid climate catastrophe. My expectation was far less grand, more closely aligned to the reality of getting 195 countries to adopt an agreement with legal force.

The IEA is pleased to announce the second event in its new distinguished speaker series, Big IdEAs, which brings global leaders and decision makers to the IEA to share their views on a range of global issues. On Friday 29 January starting at 11h30, Professor Sir David King, the UK Foreign Secretary’s Special Representative for Climate Change, will speak on "Towards decarbonising the global economy".

Urgent research is needed to assess the possible risks to human health and ecosystems from the ever-increasing amounts of engineered nanomaterials going into household waste and ending up in the environment, according to a new OECD report.

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.