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The Slovak Republic has reduced some environmental pressures over the past decade. However, it needs to do more to reduce air pollution, improve waste and wastewater treatment and move towards carbon neutrality. Since 2011, the country has taken important steps to improve its biodiversity policy. Slovakia needs to now align its strategy with the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework and the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030. Most species and habitats are in an unfavourable state and biodiversity considerations are not sufficiently integrated into sectoral policies. This is the third Environmental Performance Review of the Slovak Republic. It provides an evidence-based assessment of the country's progress towards its environmental goals over the past decade. The 29 recommendations aim to help Slovakia improve its environmental performance, giving special focus to biodiversity and forests in the context of climate change.

Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) is a policy approach that makes producers responsible for their products along the entire lifecycle, including at the post-consumer stage. This policy paper summarises the current consensus on the EPR policy approach. By taking stock of what's known and well established in the literature, it aims to foster a common understanding of the EPR approach and to provide guiding principles for its successful implementation. This paper makes a valuable contribution to an increasing number of policy debates and processes that are ongoing, both at national and international levels, in areas such as plastics, electric and electronic waste and textiles.

Global trade in plastic waste and scrap declined further (2017-2022) in 2022. The combined trade surplus of OECD Member Countries (i.e. the difference between exports and imports) continued to decrease. Less plastic waste and scrap is being exported by OECD countries to non-OECD countries, however some countries still export substantial volumes to non-OECD countries. Particularly several non-OECD south-east Asian countries remain large export destinations. Trade between OECD countries has increased. The value and composition of plastic waste and scrap exports in 2021 suggests that more high value and easy to recycle plastic waste was traded. Some volume of plastics waste is likely transformed into a 'fuel' via mechanical and chemical processing and subsequently shipped as Processed Engineered Fuel (PEF) or Refuse-Derived Fuels (RDF), broadly categorised under HS 3825. There was an increase in this trade mostly between OECD countries in 2021. The trade regime remains dynamic with new export destinations emerging, which deserve further monitoring.

Ce rapport fournit une vue d'ensemble des effets du changement climatique sur les infrastructures et des principaux domaines dans lesquels les pouvoirs publics peuvent intervenir pour les rendre plus résilientes. Y sont examinées les avancées obtenues et les lacunes à combler dans la planification et le développement des infrastructures tout au long de leur cycle de vie pour intégrer la résilience climatique, ainsi que la question de savoir comment favoriser cette intégration par une approche territoriale. L’analyse porte également sur la manière de renforcer la prise de conscience et la compréhension des risques climatiques et d’en imposer la prise en compte dans toutes les décisions de financement et d'investissement, à l’aide de normes et d’instruments financiers qui intègrent l'adaptation et la résilience climatiques. Les solutions fondées sur la nature occupent une place particulière dans le rapport, qui donne des pistes pour en tirer parti efficacement, au service de la résilience climatique. Il est également reconnu que le développement économique des pays en développement suppose d’accorder une attention mondiale aux besoins qui leur sont propres ainsi que de renforcer le soutien et les partenariats internationaux. Ces travaux apportent des éléments utiles sur l’action à mener et plaident pour que les responsables de l’élaboration des politiques nationales et infranationales adoptent une approche de la résilience fondée sur une gouvernance pluri-niveaux, en travaillant avec les propriétaires et les exploitants d'infrastructures pour soutenir la prise de décision.

This paper presents tagging methodologies for 22 environmental domains in the OECD Policy INstruments for the Environment (PINE) database, including seven domains on environmental protection (air pollution, water pollution, soil pollution, solid waste, ozone layer, noise and radiation), six domains on natural resource management (fisheries, forests, freshwater, renewable energy, fossil fuels and minerals) and nine cross-cutting domains (climate change mitigation, climate change adaptation, land degradation, biodiversity, ocean, chemicals management, energy efficiency, circular economy and mercury). The environmental domains in the PINE database support tracking progress towards domestic and international environmental objectives. Tagging environmental domains allows harmonised comparisons across countries, years and policy instrument types.

The Paris Agreement maps out a path for internationally coordinated efforts to curb global warming. At the centre of the Paris Agreement are Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) that establish countries’ plans to mitigate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions as well as adapt to the impacts of climate change. However, mitigation contributions defined in NDCs are different across countries in terms of target types, coverage of sectors and gases. This makes it challenging to assess progress on mitigation commitments. To complement the UNFCCC efforts, and facilitate the evaluation and monitoring of targets, this paper develops a methodology that harmonises countries’ 2030 mitigation targets in physical units and provide clarity on sector and gas coverage. The results are used to develop the GHG Emission Trends and Targets (GETT) indicators for non-EU countries and the EU-27 covered under the International Programme for Action on Climate (IPAC). The GETT indicators support the analyses of emissions' trajectories by describing historical GHG emission trends and comparing them to NDC emission targets, considering various reference years and indicators, including emissions intensity per capita or per unit of GDP.

Chile has made important strides on its environmental agenda in recent years with the passage of the Framework Law on Climate Change, the establishment of the Biodiversity and Protected Areas Service and the ratification of the Escazú Agreement. However, the country has made limited progress in decoupling environmental pressures from economic growth. Greenhouse gas emissions have continued to rise and the country is not on track to reach its legally binding target of net zero by 2050. Chile is well-positioned to achieve its targets for biodiversity, while air pollution remains a serious public health challenge and waste management relies heavily on landfilling. Chile is facing a severe and deepening water crisis that requires concerted action to improve water allocation and water quality, and to strengthen water governance. The review provides 36 recommendations to help Chile improve its environmental performance, with a special focus on water management and policies. This is the third Environmental Performance Review of Chile. It provides an independent, evidence-based evaluation of the country’s environmental performance since the previous review in 2016.

This new web format for Environment at a Glance Indicators provides real-time interactive on-line access to the latest comparable OECD-country data on the environment from the OECD Core Set of Environmental Indicators – a tool to evaluate environmental performance in countries and to track the course towards sustainable development. The web version allows users to play with the data and graphics, download and share them, and consult and download thematic web-books. These indicators provide key messages on major environmental trends in areas such as climate change, biodiversity, water resources, air quality, circular economy and ocean resources. They are accompanied by a short Environment at a Glance report that presents a digest of the key messages stemming from the indicators.