This issue brings you our latest papers on the global trade of plastic waste and scrap, the economic benefits of early green innovation, and urban transport policies to discourage car use.
You will also find the Green Talks LIVE replay on transition finance and a new blog on country progress towards net-zero GHG emissions.
What’s next? Join us for a workshop on biodiversity-related risks in the financial sector and don’t miss the launch of the OECD Bridging the Great Green Divide report, which focuses on green skills shortages.
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Monitoring trade in plastic waste and scrap
This Environment Working Paper aims to identify and assess trends in trade patterns in the context of recent policy developments.
The annual reported export weight of plastic scrap and waste fell by 50% over the past 4️ years, from around 12.4 Mt/year in 2017 to 6.2 Mt/year in 2021. Preliminary data indicates a continuing trend.
Exports to non-OECD countries remain significant, albeit reduced.
The economic benefits of early green innovation: Evidence from the automotive sector
The economic consequences for firms investing in green innovation, and therefore their incentives to innovate, are not well understood.
A new OECD Environment Working Paper empirically assesses the economic returns on innovation in cleaner vehicles. The results show that, when vehicle fuel prices increase, firms having previously successfully filed green patents experience an increase in their market share.
Distributional effects of urban transport policies to discourage car use
A new OECD Environment Working Paper takes stock of scientific findings to date regarding the distributional effects of policies discouraging car use in urban areas.
It describes the mechanisms responsible for the distributional effects of these policies and offers insights regarding how such policies can be designed to minimise adverse equity outcomes.
This OECD workshop, organised jointly with the International Network for Sustainable Financial Policy Insights, Research and Exchange (INSPIRE) aims to facilitate knowledge sharing and discussions on the crucial issue of assessing biodiversity-related risks for the financial sector.
Each session will delve into the challenges and limitations in determining the relationship between biodiversity loss and socio-economic loss, and will also showcase innovative methods to evaluate the financial risks, impacts and dependencies associated with biodiversity loss.
The workshop will bring together a diverse group of stakeholders, including central banks, financial and environment ministries, financial market participants, methodology providers, academia, and civil society.
Missed our Green Talks LIVE on the role of transition finance and planning?
On 16 February 2023 we discussed how to ensure the development of robust corporate transition plans to support credible and meaningful transition investments towards net zero, and how to avoid emission-intensive lock-in and greenwashing.
Watch the event replay to hear more from expert speakers from the International Monetary Fund, Sustainable Finance Institute Asia and OECD on transition finance and transition planning, their importance for moving to net-zero pathways in hard-to-abate sectors and emerging markets and developing economies, as well as outstanding challenges in this space.
How have governments’ climate policies evolved in the last decade?
We have seen a growing number of countries strengthen their emission reduction pledges by updating their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) or by pledging carbon neutrality targets towards mid-century.
But with the increasing urgency of the climate crisis, what are countries actually doing to implement these targets and how has the climate policy landscape evolved over the last decade or so?
A green skills shortage across the OECD is holding back growth in sustainable development jobs and could jeopardise the race to reach net zero by 2050.
To ensure that the green transition does not exacerbate social divides, national governments need to support vulnerable places and workers to develop the right skills to succeed. Learn more on 14 March when we launch the report Bridging the Great Green Divide.
