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Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)
International Transport Forum (ITF)

Electric vehicles are a potentially significant route towards low-carbon transport but widespread adoption of e-mobility will lead to greater consumption of electricity. Existing electricity systems will need to be reconfigured to meet these needs if reliance on fossil fuels is not to increase. In a paper looking at the potential of Smart Grids and electric vehicles to change and improve electricity systems worldwide, the International Transport Forum found that:

Organisation :
World Economic Forum (WEF)

At the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2013 in Davos-Klosters, three leading economic voices – the presidents of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank and the Secretary-General of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development – delivered the troubling message that it will not be possible to emerge from the current global economic crisis without addressing resource scarcity and climate change. The Forum’s Global Risks 2013 report echoed these views, with climate change emerging as one of the top global risks faced by mankind. It is in this context that the Green Growth Action Alliance was created during the World Economic Forum hosted Mexican B20 process and was formally endorsed at the the Los Cabos G20 Summit, June 2012, with the goal to scale up private investment in green growth. In January the Alliance also issued the Green Investment Report 2013, which identified the size of the gap in the investment required.

Asian Development Bank (ADB)

Green growth entails several different kinds of processes: conversion to low-carbon energy, climate resilience, and response to climate shocks. Equity implies a fair sharing of the costs, within countries and between countries. The authors set out to explore some of the ways that equity has been considered in climate change discussions. They discuss per capita emission right approaches, and highlight key challenges in the application of equity in global climate change negotiations. They provide a brief overview of key approaches to carbon financing, focusing on some recent cost estimations of potential climate change impacts, as well as of projected needs for green growth programs. The diversity of estimates and present evidence on the apparent gulf between available public financing and green growth needs are highlighted; and considerations of implementing green growth, focusing on building climate resilience and responding to climate shocks are discussed.

Environment and Energy

The concept of green growth rests on the idea of an efficiency revolution: green and climate-friendly innovations, huge investments to restructure the industrial, building and transport sectors, and a boost for using resources and energy more productively and efficiently. This study explores a fatal fallacy of the notion of green growth: while vast productivity increases do indeed incentivise a more efficient use of energy (and resources), they also raise demand. This rebound effect nullifies a considerable proportion of the savings potential of efficiency technologies and measures. Moreover, although the causal link between increased energy productivity and increased demand is well-established, rebound effects are still ignored in the majority of energy and climate studies and policies. This paper explores a range of possible rebound effects, outlines their quantitative extent and describes the difficulties encountered by political efforts to contain them. This summary was prepared by Eldis.

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)

Sensors and sensor networks have an important impact in meeting environmental challenges. Sensor applications in multiple fields such as smart power grids, smart buildings and smart industrial process control significantly contribute to more efficient use of resources and thus a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and other sources of pollution.

This report gives an overview of sensor technology and fields of application of sensors and sensor networks. It discusses in detail selected fields of application that have high potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and reviews studies quantifying the environmental impact.