Browse by: "2016"

This report addresses the fundamental challenges that climate change poses to infrastructure owners, who face two major challenges. First, they must ensure continued asset performance under sometimes significantly modified climate conditions that may decrease the present value of their networks or increase maintenance and refurbishment costs. Second, they must build new assets in the context of changing and uncertain climate variables. This creates a risk of over- or under-specification of infrastructure design standards, potentially resulting in non-productive investments or network service degradation. This report investigates strategies that can help transport authorities contain network performance risks inherent in changing patterns of extreme weather.

The Jordan Clean Energy Investment Policy Review is a country-specific application of the OECD Policy Guidance for Investment in Clean Energy Infrastructure. It aims to help Jordanian policy makers strengthen the enabling conditions for investment in renewable electricity generation in Jordan. The Policy Guidance is a non-prescriptive tool to help governments identify ways to mobilise private sector investment in clean energy infrastructure, especially in renewable electricity generation. The Policy Guidance was jointly developed by the OECD Working Party on Climate, Investment and Development (WPCID) of the Environment Policy Committee (EPOC) and the OECD Investment Committee, jointly with the Global Relations Secretariat (GRS). It benefited from significant inputs of the World Bank and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The Policy Guidance was annexed to the Communiqué of G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors at their meeting on 10-11 October 2013.

This report examines the key design and implementation features that need to be considered to ensure that biodiversity offset programmes are environmentally effective, economically efficient, and distributionally equitable. Biodiversity offsets are being increasingly used in a wide range of sectors as a mechanism to help compensate for the adverse effects caused by development projects in a variety of ecosystems. In this report, insights and lessons learned are drawn from more than 40 case studies from around the world, with an additional 3 in-depth country case studies from the United States, Germany and Mexico.

A major challenge facing the Republic of Buryatia, subject of the Russian Federation, is how to balance the task of protecting Lake Baikal – a unique water object and ecological system included in the UNESCO list of World Natural Heritage Areas – with the need for dynamic and sustainable socio-economic development of the republic.  This requires streamlining and improving water policy jointly with economic, administrative, information and other policy instruments. The recommendations in this report aim to help achieve this objective. They include the introduction of abstraction charges for irrigation water as a  natural resource; enhancement of state support to the water sector; and improvement of economic instruments for managing risks of water-related hazards (such as compulsory insurance and differentiated land tax rates in flood prone areas). A few innovative instruments are also recommended for pilot testing such as establishing limits for discharges of certain hazardous substances in a pilot area (e.g. Selenga river basin) and progressive development of market for tradable quotas for discharges of the “capped” pollutants; and introducing a charge (tax) on toxic agricultural chemicals (pesticides, herbicides, etc.) and synthetic detergents so that to create incentives for the reduction of diffuse water pollution.

The Urban Green Growth in Dynamic Asia project explores how to promote green growth in cities in Asia, examining policies and governance practices that encourage environmental sustainability and competitiveness in a rapidly expanding economy. This synthesis report presents the results of case studies along with practical policy recommendations, reflecting the local contexts of Southeast Asia. While Southeast Asian cities are affected by a range of economic, infrastructure, environmental and social challenges, ongoing rapid development offers opportunities to shift towards greener growth models. The concept of urban green growth can be a powerful vector of sustainable development, by emphasising the existence and potential of co-benefits between economic and environmental performance.

The outcome of COP21 urged developed countries to scale up their level of financial support, over and above their initial finance pledges, with a concrete roadmap to achieve their USD 100 billion a year commitment by 2020. This note provides analytical support to country preparation of such a roadmap, assessing the scale of future climate finance as well as identifying and discussing some key uncertainties. It sets out the resulting projections for climate finance in 2020 along with the underlying assumptions and methodologies.

This document provides guidance for policy makers on both developing new or selecting existing indicators of risk to human health and the environment from the use of crop protection products (i.e., pesticides). These pesticide risk indicators are tools, based on modelling or actual data from monitoring studies or surveys, which predict the potential risk from the use of pesticides, and help policy makers assess the sustainability of pesticide use.

To tackle climate change, CO2 emissions need to be cut. Pricing carbon is one of the most effective and lowest-cost ways of inducing such cuts. This report presents the first full analysis of the use of carbon pricing on energy in 41 OECD and G20 economies, covering 80% of global energy use and of CO2 emissions. The analysis takes a comprehensive view of carbon prices, including specific taxes on energy use, carbon taxes and tradable emission permit prices. It shows the entire distribution of effective carbon rates by country and the composition of effective carbon rates by six economic sectors within each country. Carbon prices are seen to be often very low, but some countries price significant shares of their carbon emissions. The ‘carbon pricing gap’, a synthetic indicator showing the extent to which effective carbon rates fall short of pricing emissions at EUR 30 per tonne, the low-end estimate of the cost of carbon used in this study, sheds light on potential ways of strengthening carbon pricing.

This report updates the 2001 Guidance Manual for Governments on Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR), which provided a broad overview of the key issues, general considerations, and the potential benefits and costs associated with producer responsibility for managing the waste generated by their products put on the market. Since then, EPR policies to help improve recycling and reduce landfilling have been widely adopted in most OECD countries; product coverage has been expanded in key sectors such as packaging, electronics, batteries and vehicles; and EPR schemes are spreading in emerging economies in Asia, Africa and South America, making it relevant to address the differing policy contexts in developing countries.
 
In light of all of the changes in the broader global context, this updated review of the guidelines looks at some of the new design and implementation challenges and opportunities of EPR policies, takes into account recent efforts undertaken by governments to better assess the cost and environmental effectiveness of EPR and its overall impact on the market, and addresses some of the specific issues in emerging market economies.

Ce rapport fournit une évaluation approfondie des conséquences économiques de la pollution de l'air extérieur pour les décennies à venir. Il met l’accent sur l'impact en termes de mortalité et de morbidité ainsi que sur les changements dans les rendements des cultures qui ont été causés par des concentrations trop élevées de polluants. L'analyse s’appuie sur des simulations d’un modèle d’équilibre général multisectoriel, multirégional, et dynamique, pour évaluer les coûts marchands de la pollution atmosphérique. L'analyse aborde également les impacts sanitaires non marchands en utilisant des techniques d’évaluation de types « disposition à payer ».
Le rapport constate que l'augmentation de l'activité économique entraînera une augmentation significative des émissions et des concentrations de polluants atmosphériques au niveau mondial, à moins que des politiques plus strictes ne soient adoptées. En conséquence, de graves répercussions sur la santé humaine et l'environnement sont à prévoir. Le rapport montre des projections de décès prématurés causés par la pollution de l'air extérieur au niveau mondial et régional pour 2015-2060, ainsi que les conséquences sur l'augmentation des maladies et la diminution des rendements agricoles. Les impacts marchands de la pollution de l'air extérieur devraient conduire à d'importants coûts économiques illustrés au niveau régional et sectoriel. Enfin, le rapport prévoit d'énormes coûts sociaux par an au niveau mondial si les gouvernements ne mettent pas en œuvre des politiques plus strictes.

This document provides guidance to both industry and regulatory authorities on storage stability for different types of microbial pesticide formulations. It includes guidance on the physical and chemical parameters to be assessed for different formulation types before and/or after the storage period, and also describes specific and adequate criteria for the determination of storage stability.

This document provides additional detailed guidance on crop field trials conducted according to OECD TG 509 (Testing of Chemicals on Crop Field Trial) and helps in planning the trials and in interpreting the results. The publication is organised in two parts: the core document on guidance for conducting crop field trials and the three Annexes containing additional information.

Ce rapport présente une nouvelle évaluation quantitative détaillée des conséquences du changement climatique sur la croissance économique dans les décennies à venir. Il explique dans quelles mesures le changement climatique affectera différents moteurs de la croissance, tels que la productivité du travail ou l’accumulation de capital physique, dans les différents secteurs à travers le monde. L’analyse sectorielle et régionale souligne que les impacts du changement climatique se feront ressentir dans tous les secteurs et toutes les régions. Toutefois, les effets les plus néfastes se manifesteront surtout dans les secteurs de la santé et de l’agriculture, avec des dommages particulièrement forts en Afrique et en Asie.

This report presents recommendations on the reform of economic instruments for water resources management in Kyrgyzstan, specifically on tariffs for urban water supply and sanitation (WSS) and irrigation water, pollution charges, surface water abstraction charges for enterprises (consumptive and non-consumptive uses), specific land tax rates for the Issyk-Kul biosphere reserve, as well as taxes and customs duty on products contributing to water pollution. For each instrument, alternative reform options are identified and assessed, and preferred options put forward, with an action plan.