Browse by: "2011"

Undertaken jointly with United Nations Environment Programme, the report analyses policies and issues related to climate change adaptation and mitigation in the tourism sector. It provides policy recommendations, with the objective to identify priority areas to be included in a framework for action in the area of climate change and tourism.  A review of the state of policy-making on this important issue clearly indicates that greater efforts could be made by countries to understand the likely impacts of climate change on tourism; there is a low awareness of the tourism sector's climate change mitigation and adaptation needs; and that current policy, with few exceptions, is inadequate to the scale of the challenge, both on mitigation and adaptation.

De nombreux pays ont sollicité le concours du secteur privé pour moderniser et développer leurs infrastructures en eau et en assainissement et améliorer l’efficacité des réseaux de distribution. Cet ouvrage constitue un catalogue cohérent d’orientations à l’intention des pouvoirs publics. Il couvre, notamment, la répartition des rôles, des risques et des responsabilités entre partenaires, les conditions d’un cadre institutionnel bénéfique et les arrangements contractuels susceptibles de permettre une coopération optimale avec le secteur privé et une meilleure utilisation des capacités de chacun.

This 2011 review of the Slovak Republic's environmental policies and programmes covers recent developments, greening growth, implementation of environmental policies, climate change and energy, agriculture and the environment and international cooperation.

This 2011 review of Israel's environmental conditions and policies evaluates progress in sustainable development, improving natural resource management, integrating environmental and economic policies, and strengthening international co-operation. This report is the first OECD review of Israel’s environmental policy performance.

This report addresses multilevel governance challenges in water policy implementation and identifies good practices for coordinating water policy across ministries, between levels of government, and across local actors at subnational level. Based on a methodological framework, it assesses the main “coordination gaps” in terms of policymaking, financing, information, accountability, objectives and capacity building, and provides a platform of existing governance mechanisms to bridge them. Based on an extensive survey on water governance the report provides a comprehensive institutional mapping of roles and responsibilities in water policy-making at national/subnational level in 17 OECD countries. It concludes on preliminary multilevel governance guidelines for integrated water policy.

This document intends to prioritise the sectors of the chemical industry for which more refined ESDs should be developed, provides key concepts and tools which are instrumental in the production of ESDs for the chemical industry such as life cycle stages, factors influencing emissions and release quantification methods. This document will be a starting point for the development of ESDs for the chemical industry.

Inducing environmental innovation is a significant challenge to policy-makers. Efforts to design public policies that address these issues are motivated by the fact that innovations can allow for improved environmental quality at lower cost. However, the relationship between environmental policy and technological innovation remains an area in which empirical evidence is scant.  Increased attention should be paid to the design characteristics of public policies that are likely to affect the ‘type’ of innovation induced.  The work presented in this book is brought together in five substantive chapters: environmental policy design characteristics and their role in inducing innovation, the role of public policies (including multilateral agreements) in encouraging transfer of environmental technologies, followed by three ‘sectoral’ studies of innovation in alternative fuel vehicles, solid waste management and recycling, and green (sustainable) chemistry. While particular focus has been placed on the role of environmental policy in bringing about the innovation documented, it is recognised that other factors play a key role in inducing innovation which has positive environmental implications.     

Innovation is key to green growth. It helps decouple growth from natural capital depletion and contributes to economic growth and job creation. Business is the driver of innovation, but governments need to provide clear and stable market signals, e.g. through carbon pricing. This book explores policy actions for the deployment of new technologies and innovations as they emerge: investment in research and development, support for commercialisation, strengthening markets and fostering technology diffusion. Competition will be essential to bring out the best solutions.

This report evaluates how well EECCA countries have done in ensuring people’s access to adequate water supply and sanitation services since their Economic, Finance, and Environment Ministers adopted the Almaty Guiding Principles to support such efforts in 2000. Besides looking at trends in the technical and financial performance of the water sector, the report analyses the results of institutional reforms at different levels of governance, as well as financing arrangements. Analysis focuses mainly on urban areas, but some of the challenges in rural areas are also examined. The report draws policy recommendations to help countries stem the decline in the sector’s performance that has occurred over the last decade, despite opportunities provided by rapid economic growth in many EECCA countries in this period.

This Test Guideline describes an in vivo assay that detects chemicals that may induce gene mutations. In this assay, transgenic rats or mice that contain multiple copies of chromosomally integrated plasmid or phage shuttle vectors are used. The transgenes contain reporter genes for the detection of various types of mutations induced by test substances. A negative control group and a minimum of 3 treatment groups of transgenic animals are treated for 28 consecutive days. Administration is usually followed by a 3-day period of time, prior to sacrifice, during which the agent is not administered and during which unrepaired DNA lesions are fixed into stable mutations. At the end of this 3-day period, the animals are sacrificed, genomic DNA is isolated from the tissue(s) of interest and purified. Mutations that have arisen during treatment are scored by recovering the transgene and analysing the phenotype of the reporter gene in a bacterial host deficient for the reporter gene. Mutant frequency, the reported parameter in these assays,is calculated by dividing the number of plaques/plasmids containing mutations in the transgene by the total number of plaques/plasmids recovered from the same DNA sample.