Publications & Documents

As countries scale up climate action, they face the challenge of expanding renewable power while tackling biodiversity loss. Transitioning away from fossil fuels can reduce climate-related pressure on biodiversity, but brings its own risks. Unless carefully managed, the expansion of renewable power could compromise biodiversity. This report synthesises evidence on biodiversity impacts from renewable power infrastructure, with a focus on solar power, wind power and power lines. It identifies opportunities for mainstreaming biodiversity into power sector planning and policy to deliver better outcomes for nature and the climate. Drawing on good practice insights from across the globe, the report offers governments recommendations to align renewable power expansion with biodiversity goals.

Reaching climate neutrality requires economic transformations of unprecedented scale and speed. Immediate action from the business community can avoid unnecessary costs, create wellbeing co-benefits and prepare local businesses with a better competitive position in the future climate neutral economy. This report shows what reaching climate neutrality by 2040 means for Hamburg businesses and identifies key actions they need to undertake. It provides insights where the Hamburg economy and its businesses stand on the way to climate neutrality and on their needs to advance, drawing on a business survey. The study also shares insights from action plans of selected comparison cities. It points to cross-sector as well as to sector-specific challenges and opportunities for Hamburg businesses. This includes making better use of low-cost renewables, addressing energy efficiency in buildings as well as challenges and opportunities in activities in and around the port and in industry. It highlights Hamburg's potential as a hydrogen hub as well as the need to adopt circular economy practices. It illustrates that a regional and business perspective are necessary to achieve climate neutrality in prosperity, requiring individual and collective business action.

The frequency and severity of extreme wildfires are on the rise in the United States, causing unprecedented disruption and increasingly challenging the country’s capacity to contain losses and damages. These challenges are set to keep growing in the context of climate change, highlighting the need to scale up wildfire prevention and climate change adaptation. This paper provides an overview of the United States’ wildfire policies and practices and assesses the extent to which wildfire management in the country is evolving to adapt to growing wildfire risk under climate change.

The paper analyses the current system of environmental taxation and environmental expenditure in Ukraine, identifies issues in the way environmental tax policy is currently designed and implemented and highlights main areas where environmental taxation and expenditure could be improved. It uses data on environmental tax revenue and budgets from expenditure reports of the State Treasury Service of Ukraine over the period 2010 - 2020. Where available, preliminary data for 2021 were also included. The paper aims to support the government of Ukraine in reforming environmental taxation and public funding for environmental protection. Ukraine’s Post-War Recovery and Reconstruction Plan outlines ambitious plans for reform, including in the environmental domain. It envisions restructuring the current environmental tax system, expanding it to energy and transport and harmonising it with that of the European Union. It also foresees an analytical study systematising current taxes and payments in line with Eurostat classification standards. This paper can support these efforts.

The paper presents the understanding of and attitudes towards climate change and climate policies in Ukraine, using a survey on a representative sample of more than 1 500 Ukrainians. The survey was carried out between October 2021 and February 2022 and presents the situation before Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine. The survey tests support for three main climate policies in detail: a green infrastructure programme, a carbon tax with cash transfers and a ban on combustion-engine cars. It shows that support for climate policies depends on three key factors: how people perceive the effectiveness of the policies in reducing emissions, how they perceive distributional impacts on lower-income households (inequality concerns), and if they think their household will gain or lose from the policy. The survey also shows that when citizens receive information that specifically addresses these concerns, they exhibit stronger support for the policy. How the policy is designed also matters: Ukrainians widely accept a carbon tax when its revenues finance green investments and/or compensate lower-income households. The paper highlights seven considerations for Ukraine policymakers to design measures that are effective and supported by citizens. Following Russia’s war of aggression and once conditions are right, Ukrainian policymakers can also use the survey results to guide the reform of the environmental tax system- one of the goals in Ukraine’s recovery and reform agenda. The survey in Ukraine that the paper describes was conducted as part of a large-scale OECD international survey of attitudes toward climate policies carried out on over 40 000 respondents in twenty countries.

This new web format for Country Notes on Fossil Fuel Support provides interactive on-line access to the latest data from the OECD Inventory of Support Measures for Fossil Fuels by country – identifying and estimating the value of support arising from policies that encourage the production or consumption of fossil fuels. The web version allows users to download, share and play with the data. Interactive graphics enable data visualisation, in national currency, by beneficiary and by energy product. These Country Notes provide, for each of the 50 economies covered in the Inventory, a snapshot of energy market structure, the current state of energy prices and taxes, and recent developments and trends in fossil fuel support. Data and country notes for the EU Eastern Partnership (EaP) countries have been collected and prepared as part of the GREEN Action Task Force.

The SME Policy Index: Eastern Partner Countries 2024 – Building resilience in challenging times is a unique benchmarking tool to assess and monitor progress in the design and implementation of SME policies against EU and international best practice. It embraces the priorities laid out in the European Union’s SME Strategy for a sustainable and digital Europe and is structured around the ten principles of the Small Business Act for Europe, which provide a wide range of measures to guide the design and implementation of SME policies. This report marks the fourth edition in this series, following assessments in 2012, 2016, and 2020. It tracks progress made since 2020 and offers the latest key findings on SME development and related policies in the countries of the Eastern Partnership (EaP). It also identifies emerging challenges affecting SMEs in the region and provides recommendations to address them. The 2024 edition benefits from an updated methodology that also offers a deeper analysis of policies to support the digital transformation of SMEs.

This study evaluates the progress of fossil-fuel subsidy reform in Ukraine since its launch in 2016 using the OECD 'bottom-up', inventory, approach. It also identifies major subsidy schemes that need significant reform. The report reflects the energy subsidy policies and reforms in Ukraine prior to Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. The analysis covers: budgetary transfers, government revenue foregone (or tax expenditure), induced transfers in the form of cross-subsidies or below market tariffs and transfer of risk to government. The study also covers fossil-fuels subsidies to production and consumption, particularly, for natural gas, coal and electricity generated from fossil fuels while support for energy efficiency and renewables is considered for comparative purposes. This report also briefly discusses the taxation and energy pricing policies in Ukraine that have had direct or indirect impact on the evolution of fossil-fuel subsidies in the country. Detailed estimates of all individual support measures are provided in the Annexes to the report.

Plastic products present several environmental, health, social and economic challenges that span from the extraction of raw materials to primary and final plastics production, to their distribution and use, and to the collection and sorting of plastic waste. International trade, which has facilitated the development of plastics supply chains, also comes with a range of challenges, such as a surge in demand for plastics ― notably in packaging ― difficulties to monitor plastics embedded in other products, and an increased risk of plastic waste leaking in countries that have less rigorous environmental regulations. Yet trade can also serve as a vehicle to access foreign pollution control technologies or to foster economies of scale for circular economy practices. Indeed, the implementation of circular economy solutions through trade policies is crucial in addressing plastic pollution. Such policies could include reduced tariffs on environmentally-friendly alternatives to plastic products; trade facilitation measures for reverse supply chains; or technical regulations, standards, labelling schemes, and conformity assessment procedures that promote product designs which will minimise pollution throughout the entire plastic lifecycle.