The European Union should reform its legal labour migration policies to get its fair share of the global talent pool, according to a new report published by the OECD.

OECD countries need to address the growing anti-immigration backlash and reinforce migration and integration policies while fostering international cooperation in this area, according to a new OECD report.

This edition of Migration Policy Debates presents updated information on international migration in the Americas up to 2014 as well as on labour market outcomes of emigrants originating from the hemisphere. It also summarises available evidence on the emigration of doctors and nurses from the region.

This edition presents an overview of some “alternative pathways” that could help take the pressure off the main traditional pathways for refugees in general and assesses their potential application for Syrians in particular. Overall, these alternatives can help provide safe channels and good integration prospects to refugees who might otherwise be tempted to risk their fate with smugglers and illegal border crossing.

Who bears the cost of integrating refugees? New edition of the Migration Policy Debates

Gaps in data covering refugees, asylum seekers, migrants and internally displaced populations are endangering the lives and well-being of millions of children on the move, warned five UN and partner agencies today.

The Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes has released peer review reports assessing the tax systems of 13 jurisdictions for information exchange.

Our economies need a change of engine. The age of carbon is over. Renewable energies are the only future viable source if we want to protect life. Spain must be at the forefront of this transformation, turning the environment and green growth into its new engine of development.

The UN Conference (28 November-9 December 2011) involved OECD experts to focus on green growth and climate change, adaptation and mitigation, carbon accounting, improving transparency (“MRV”), climate finance and technology.

Organised jointly by the OECD and the IEA, this seminar held on 26-27 September 2012 aimed to promote dialogue and enhance understanding between a wide range of countries on technical issues in the international climate change negotiations. This seminar was an informal meeting outside of the UNFCCC negotiations and discussions are non-attributed.

The OECD and the ESRC Genomics Policy & Research Forum jointly organised a one-day Forum on 12 November 2012 in Paris. The event was both retrospective and forward-looking. The forum concluded that the promise of biotechnology is not set but evolves with fresh scientific knowledge, novel laws and regulations. The future of biotechnology needs to also integrate social and cultural dimensions.

This event held on 19-20 March 2013 at the OECD is part of a series of seminars, organised by the OECD and the IEA, which aims to promote dialogue and enhance understanding between a wide range of experts on technical issues in the international climate change negotiations. The agenda, presentations and list of participants are now available.

This event held on 18-19 September 2013 at the OECD is part of a series of seminars, organised by the OECD and the IEA, which aims to promote dialogue and enhance understanding between a wide range of experts on technical issues in the international climate change negotiations. The agenda, presentations and list of participants are now available.

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.

This event held on 18-19 March 2014 at the OECD is part of a series of seminars, organised by the OECD and the IEA, which aims to promote dialogue and enhance understanding between a wide range of experts on technical issues in the international climate change negotiations. The agenda, presentations and list of participants are now available.

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.

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.

This event held on 16-17 September 2014 at the IEA is part of a series of seminars, organised by the OECD and the IEA, which aims to promote dialogue and enhance understanding between a wide range of experts on technical issues in the international climate change negotiations. The agenda, presentations and list of participants are now available.

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.

Advanced economies are pushing up carbon emissions, traffic congestion and air pollution by under-taxing company cars and diesel fuel, according to new OECD research.

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!”.

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....

The polar bear, floating mournfully away on an ice floe as his habitat melts around him, is perhaps one of the most well-travelled symbols of the impacts of climate change.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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".

Cloudy head on climate change? Join the webinar on Wednesday 30 March 2016 from 1-2 pm (Paris time) with Professor Per Espen Stoknes on What we think about... when we try not to think about... global warming!

China was among the near-200 countries to adopt the Paris Climate Change Agreement (Paris Agreement) at an historic UN conference in Paris, France on 12 December 2015. As an emerging economy and one of the world’s major emitters of greenhouse gases, how China implements the Paris Agreement will be important. We asked Dr Xuedu Lu of the Asian Development Bank for his views.

This Global Forum, held on 24-25 October 2016, aimed to shed light on the links between environment and economic growth, and the toolkits to quantify these links. It provided a platform to explore how a well-managed natural environment can contribute to economic growth and how an effective and efficient regulatory system can best be designed?

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.

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.

Action to prevent the risk of major flooding in Paris and the Ile de France region has improved in recent years – particularly after the Seine burst its banks in May and June 2016 – but urban and territorial planning needs to be better adapted, governance strengthened and long-term funding clarified, according to the OECD.

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.

10-12 July 2018 - Within the margins of the meeting of the Subsidiary Body on Implementation under the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Forum examined the opportunities and challenges with regard to biodiversity mainstreaming in national economic and development policy and across different sectors (e.g., agriculture, forestry, fisheries, energy and mining).

22 November 2018, London - Hosted by the Department of Geography and Environment, this panel reflected on the use of cost benefit analysis (CBA) and took stock of recent developments in environmental CBA and the challenges this presents to policy makers. The panel was comprised of some of the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) authors of the CBA report published by OECD as well as policy practitioners.

The OECD, UN Environment and World Bank Group today called on leaders of G20 countries to do more to enable a radical shift of investment into low-carbon, climate-resilient infrastructure as a way to limit the impact of climate change.

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.

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 event focused on the implication of COP24 outcomes and the implementation of the Rulebook, as well as on upcoming work on unresolved issues such as Article 6. Discussions covered Common Tabular Format (CTF) for climate finance and tracking progress towards the mitigation targets and updating and implementing NDCs, with a particular attention to the power sector and carbon markets.

Rapid economic development and climate change are increasing our vulnerability to natural disasters, and a new joint OECD-World Bank report calls for pro-active management of the financial costs of those disasters before they strike.

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.

The challenges we face in our era of rapid, disruptive change are daunting, but we are starting to develop the tools, techniques and concepts to meet them, OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurría said.

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.

Being a travel enthusiast, planning aholiday to me is to first scan the days on which the major occasions(birthdays/anniversary) falls. Fortunately, this year it was all the 3 major occasionsfalling over weekends. Could not have asked...