Two new OECD reports provide wide-ranging evidence of how reforming subsidies and tax breaks for fossil fuels can help countries boost finances and meet green objectives.

A new OECD report presents around 550 measures that support fossil-fuel production or use in the OECD’s 34 member countries and also highlights the successes and challenges in bringing about reform, says this OECD Insights blog post.

Long-term projections suggest that without policy changes, the continuation of business-as-usual economic growth and development will have serious impacts on natural resources and the ecosystem services on which human well-being depends.

The European Union may be facing some difficult economic challenges, but that's no excuse for not acting now to create an economy based on resource efficiency and low-carbon development. The benefits are potentially enormous, including lower greenhouse gas emissions, more efficient use of energy and resources and rising growth and innovation.

Cities can generate growth and jobs while becoming greener – this is the message of the OECD’s new Green Growth in Cities report. Drawing on case studies of Paris, Chicago, Kitakyushu and Stockholm, the report identifies green policies that can respond to urban growth priorities and suggests how to implement and finance them.

This year's forum focuses on three key themes: Promoting inclusive growth, Rebuilding trust and Fostering sustainability. The Forum brings together ministers, business, labour, civil society and academia to share policies and ideas. It feeds into the Ministerial Meeting, where government leaders and ministers discuss issues on the global agenda.

With 7 billion people in the world today and 9 billion by 2050, we must invest in development that will meet the growing demands for food, water and energy. The new OECD publication Putting Green Growth at the Heart of Development suggests that these investments could define a path for inclusive growth and sustainable development by focusing on people’s needs and prospects while respecting the environment.

Health is both a precondition for, and an outcome of, sustainable development. Climate change affects health through a myriad of exposure pathways, each presenting simultaneously both challenges and opportunities for sustainable health and development.

Following the delivery of the Strategy in May 2011, green growth will be mainstreamed in OECD analytical work to enrich guidance on a number of country, sector and issue-specific areas. This will involve integrating green growth considerations in Economic Surveys, Environmental Performance Reviews and Innovation Reviews.

This book discusses scientific and technological tools at the centre of a renewed interest in marine biotechnology that is contributing to a new bioeconomy sector in many countries and offering potential new solutions to global challenges.

Credible and consistent carbon pricing must be the cornerstone of government actions to tackle climate change, according to a new OECD report.

Governments need to put together the optimal policy mix to eliminate emissions from fossil fuels in the second half of the century. Cherry-picking a few easy measures will not do the trick. There has to be progress on every front, notably with respect to carbon pricing, and that is what peer review and learning from best practice should help achieve, said OECD Secretary-General.

Risk finance is essential for new ventures to commercialise new ideas and grow, especially in emerging sectors. Yet very little is known about the drivers and characteristics of risk finance in the green sector. This paper aims to fill this gap by providing a detailed description of risk finance in the green sector across 29 countries and identifying the role that policies might have in shaping high-growth investments.

The OECD’s 34 member countries today affirmed their common resolve to work towards a deal on combating climate change at the COP21 talks in Paris in 2015. OECD accession countries Colombia and Latvia joined the statement issued at the Organisation’s annual Ministerial Council Meeting, attended by finance, economy, trade and other ministers.

Twenty years ago climate change was viewed as just an environmental issue. Today it is squarely an economic issue. Climate change poses significant risks to our economic systems that could result in very large damages. To mitigate these risks we need to radically transform our economies and societies to stop global warming.

The policy forum officially launches the conceptual framework to the public and offers an opportunity for participants to discuss the key issues for emerging Asia: housing, buildings and energy, land use and transport, water and waste management, green goods and services.

The Japan-OECD Policy Forum on Urban Development and Green Growth will address cities’ unique role in creating synergies between environmental and economic objectives to advance green growth. Asian cities in particular are at the centre of this challenge. This event is organised as a commemorative event for the 50th Anniversary of Japan's Accession to the OECD.

Webinar presenting OECD’s and UNEP’s Compendium of Best Practices in Green Public Procurement

This Forum examined the distributional consequences of implementing green growth strategies and their impact on employment, skills and income.

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.

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.

This report develops an analytical framework that assesses the macroeconomic, environmental and distributional consequences of energy subsidy reforms. The framework is applied to the case of Indonesia to study the consequences in this country of a gradual phase out of all energy consumption subsidies between 2012 and 2020.

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 transition to a low carbon economy is achievable, but will require a concerted, more consistent effort across a range of policy areas, from tradeable permits to stringent norms.

Is it possible for 9 billion people to live on this planet and enjoy a good standard of living? And on such a planet, is it possible for economies to grow, businesses to profit, and communities to prosper without undermining the natural systems that support all life? And without destroying some of the planet’s last great wildernesses?

In his remarks to the Business & Climate Summit, the Secretary-General said that business lies at the heart of what we need to achieve on climate action. If Governments produce clear, credible and coherent national policies and clear messages and signals, the full transformative power of business, markets and human ingenuity will be unleashed.

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 major report produced in co-operation with the International Energy Agency (IEA), the International Transport Forum (ITF) and the Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) identifies the misalignments between climate change objectives and policy and regulatory frameworks across a range of policy domains (investment, taxation, innovation and skills, trade, and adaptation) and activities at the heart of climate policy.

Addressing climate change requires urgent policy action to drive a global infrastructure and technological transformation. The latest report 'Aligning Policies for a Low-carbon Economy' presents the first diagnosis of the alignments of policy and regulatory frameworks with climate policy goals. Join the Green Growth Knowledge Platform (GGKP) for a webinar exploring these issues on 5 October 2015, 15:00-16:30 (Paris time).

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.

The OECD and the Ministry of Finance of Indonesia (Fiscal Policy Agency) held an expert seminar on 4-5 November, 2015 in Bogor, Indonesia. The event brought together representatives from the ASEAN line ministries, research organisations and other key international organisations to share their knowledge and expertise on the topic. This event was supported by the OECD Knowledge Sharing Alliance.

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.

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.

Achieving green growth requires ambitious transition management policies in key sectors such as energy, transport, water and agriculture. Provided that the pace of innovation in a number of these key areas is growing faster than ever before, the Forum examined how to foster the "next industrial revolution" by harnessing the potential of systems innovation policies to support green growth.

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.

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).

From the early 2000s, sustainability has emerged as a central policy-making consideration as climate change and population growth have heightened concerns about already-stretched natural resources.

The Paris Agreement is a landmark in collective efforts on climate change and is the result of many years’ hard work. It must now be implemented.

Further structural reforms are needed to help the business sector boost productivity growth and overcome the key challenges of sluggish investment in advanced economies and excess capacity in emerging economies, according to a new OECD report.

Current carbon prices are falling short of the levels needed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions driving climate change, but even moderate price increases could have a significant impact, according to new OECD research.

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 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.

Integrating measures to tackle climate change into regular economic policy will have a positive impact on economic growth over the medium and long term, according to a new OECD report prepared in the context of the German Presidency of the G20.

This note presents selected findings based on the set of well-being indicators published in How's Life? 2020.

This note presents selected findings based on the set of well-being indicators published in How's Life? 2020.

Last night, I and my brother were watching news and suddenly he said…, “leading a luxurious life in our village is much easier than struggling for a simpler life in metro...

In yester years, only the business organizations with huge financial backing were able to initiate the process of custom software development. This condition immediately changed when positive remarks on the usage of these applications...

Apart from being one of the most amazing book series, J.K. Rowling has beautifully captured the imagination of a whole generation, giving them lifelong memories!