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.

Clearly a revolution in the global economy is needed for a heavy reduction of GHG emissions. You may have heard of Carbon Capture and Storage or CCS. This technology prevents CO2 from fossil fuel combustion from accumulating in the atmosphere.

The initials ‘CCS’ usually stand for Carbon Capture and Storage. However, I was with the team in Paris during COP21 promoting the Cap Global Carbon proposal; the mechanism embodied in Cap Global Carbon is Cap & Share, and it occurred to us that the name ‘Carbon Cap & Share’ has the same initials, CCS. Are these two types of CCS complementary or antagonistic? Are they friends or enemies?

A stern warning for climate change, and our health - Shipping brings us 90% of world trade and has increased in size by 400% in the last 45 years. Cargo ships, tankers and dry-bulk tankers are an essential element of a globalised world economy, but they are thirsty titans and they won’t settle for diet drinks. There are up to 100,000 working vessels on the ocean and some travel an incredible 2/3 of the distance to the moon in one year.

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.

Climate change is not just about a change in climate towards hotter, wetter, and drier conditions, but also about an increase in the variability of the climate, as well as in the number and severity of extreme events.

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.

“National governments must take the lead and do so with a recognition that they are part of a global effort.” Speaking last week at the Munk School of Global Affairs in Toronto, OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurría urged countries not to retreat behind their national borders in dealing with climate change. Read the full blog.

Infrastructure resilience requires a coordinated policy response to ensure that infrastructure owners and developers have the incentive and capacity to integrate resilience. The framework is aimed at policy makers in OECD countries, but the underlying messages can be applied to other country contexts.

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.

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".

The wet and verdant expanse of the Mekong Delta’s rivers and farms is a veritable rice bowl for the world. Not only do the region’s paddies produce half of Viet Nam’s rice crop yearly, the country is the world’s third largest rice exporter, with 17% of world exports of paddy rice. Our analysis identifies Viet Nam as facing the world’s fourth highest water risks for rice production.

“We are launching the “Paris Collaborative on Green Budgeting” within the framework of our zero-emission objective,” French president Emmanuel Macron said at the global climate financing summit. The OECD has brought together a cross-disciplinary group of environmental, tax, budget and fiscal affairs experts who will partner with countries to help them assess and improve their budgets and fiscal policies for climate resilience.

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.

Cities with highest average population densities in the world are facing the challenge of urban sprawl. Finding sustainable solutions to reduce sprawl demands rethinking urban space and weighing the private benefits of low density living–my house and garden–against social, environmental and infrastructure costs.

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.

On 25 September 2018 in New York, the OECD, UN Environment and the World Bank Group hosted a high-level panel discussion on their joint initiative “Financing Climate Futures: Rethinking Infrastructure”. The project is being undertaken with the support of the German Federal Ministry of the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety.

On 10 December in Katowice, the 9th annual High-Level Breakfast on Institutional Investors and the Low-carbon Transition, co-hosted by the OECD and the Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change (IIGCC), highlighted significant progress in mobilising green institutional investment, as well as important remaining challenges.

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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.

Developing countries are at the forefront of the ongoing battle to address climate change. Roughly 60% of the new infrastructure built before 2030 will be in the developing world, and it is these investment decisions that will determine our collective ability to address the climate emergency.

Rajasthan, the greatest point out of India, has tons to present their website visitors via various areas of the earth. This information aspires for supplying you with small info on a few of main vacation sights within regal and imperial...

India is a natural, magical and beautiful country. Here you can explore the various kinds of natural and man made places such as forts, palaces, lakes, hills, backwater, beaches, mountains, temples etc. This country is rich in tradition,...

As part of its Green Growth Strategy, the OECD is developing a set of indicators for agriculture. A Preliminary Assessment has just been published, and a selection of indicators has been identified to capture key aspects of a low-carbon, resource-efficient agricultural sector.

Let’s be honest, waste reduction doesn’t have much of a ring to it. To many, it’s a complex policy issue without much hope if consumers keep throwing their cans away in the street.

The Green Growth and Sustainable development Forum is an annual event, and the third Forum will take place on 13-14 November 2014. This blog highlights the importance of the Forum, and how, far from being "abstract", this year's Forum offers an invaluable opportunity to address the social implications of implementing green growth strategies.

This will be “the mother of all years for summits on international development". International delegates will gather in Addis Ababa in July to discuss how poorer countries can fund their development. In September, attention will shift to New York, where the UN will sign off on the successors to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). In December, Paris will take centre stage to host the global climate change conference, COP21.

Ever plodded through flood waters to get to a conference? In late January, the Green Growth Knowledge Platform (GGKP) held their 3rd annual conference in Venice, Italy. The flooded city reminded attendees about the real world changes that are occurring and the need for continued action towards going green.

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.

A new OECD publication highlights notable economic and environmental benefits of phasing out fossil-fuel subsidies in Indonesia. Interestingly, the study is based on the context that pertained until mid-2014, when international oil prices where high and before the recent phase-out of subsidies by the government.

To mark the opening of the International Transport Forum’s Annual Summit, today’s post addresses three broad issues of the complex and multidimensional triangular relationship between transport, trade and tourism.

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.

OECD urges efforts to better price carbon as new analysis finds that 90% of CO2-emissions are priced below EUR 30 per tonne, a low-end estimate of climate damage, and 60% are not priced at all. Effective Carbon Rates in the OECD and Selected Partner Economies calculates effective carbon rates (ECR) on CO2-emissions from energy use for 41 countries which together use 80% of global emissions.

With the world welcoming the new comprehensive global climate agreement at COP21 aiming to limit the global average temperature rise to well below 2 degrees Celsius, it is worth noting the significant contribution that the OECD family has made. These contributions were aptly summarized in a useful joint statement by the secretariats of OECD, IEA, International Transport Forum and Nuclear Energy Agency right after COP21 kicked off.

As part of the Better Life Index, Sustainable Development forms a multi-faceted key role in the way the OECD carries out its policy analysis. This latest blog from the OECD's Chief Statistician outlines how this is done.

The OECD defines policy coherence for sustainable development (PCSD) as an approach and policy tool to integrate the economic, social, environmental, and governance dimensions of sustainable development at all stages of domestic and international policy making. This blog details the OECD's PCSD framework and its goals.

The Sustainable Development Goals which world leaders agreed on in 2015 are focussed on people, peace and planet. Achieving goals requires a transformational, integrated, and universal agenda that is based on effective policies, sufficient pecunia and true partnerships. Latest OECD Insights blog post by Erik Solheim, Chair of the OECD Development Assistance Committee.

Despite great strides in reducing the number of people in abject poverty, Asia and the Pacific remains home to more than half of the world’s extreme poor. With the global and regional economic outlook uncertain, the key challenge facing Asia is to sustain the growth needed to create jobs and reduce poverty. Read the latest blog by Mr. Stephen P. Groff, Vice President of the Asian Development Bank.

Read the latest OECD Insights blog written by Mrs. Gabriela Ramos, Special Counsellor to the OECD Secretary-General, Chief of Staff and G20 Sherpa.

Read the latest blog by Patrick Paul Walsh, Professor of International Development Studies, University College Dublin, Ireland and Senior Advisor, UN SDSN, Earth Institute, on the Implications of the UN 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda for the OECD.

At one time, I might have said that sustainable development is in the OECD’s blood, but biological metaphors have made enormous progress over the past few years and now I’d say it’s in the Organisation’s DNA... Blog by Ron Gass, founding Director of the OECD Directorate of Social Affairs, Manpower and Education and the OECD Centre for Educational Research and Education (CERI).

Read the newest OECD's Insights blog based on the latest report from the New Approaches to Economic Challenges (NAEC) "Debate the Issues: New Approaches to Economic Challenges".

This report uses household level data covering 20 OECD countries to analyse energy affordability at current energy prices and explores how these indicators change in response to a simulated energy tax reform. The report finds that higher energy prices, needed to cut harmful carbon emissions and air pollution, can also help achieve social policy objectives.

Living amidst the hustle and bustle of urban life, people often feel the need for a long journey away from their busy routine.

Across OECD countries some 83 million people suffer from diabetes. On current trends, that will rise to almost 100 million by 2030.

The transition from school to work in Germany is remarkably smooth. An excellent vocational education and training (VET) system ensures that young people are well-prepared when they enter the labour market and can find jobs that match their qualifications.

Future retirees may expect low pension replacement rates in Germany. Public transfers currently represent a large share of older people’s income in Germany despite a significant increase in employment rates at older ages work...

This 4-page online document presents the key findings from OECD Pensions at a Glance 2015 and why it is important for Germany. It also identifies two key pension policy measures which would help improve the performance of pension systems in Germany.