The OECD has developed a Policy Guidance with information and advice on how to facilitate the integration of adaptation within development processes. While efforts to integrate climate change adaptation will be led by developing country partners, international donors have a critical role to play in supporting such efforts as well as in integrating consideration of adaptation within their own plans and activities. To this end, partners and donors alike need operational guidance.
The objectives of the OECD Policy Guidance are to: i) promote understanding of the implications of climate change on development practice and the associated need to mainstream climate adaptation in development co-operation agencies and partners countries; ii) identify appropriate approaches for integrating climate adaptation into development policies at national, sectoral and project levels and in urban and rural contexts; and iii) identify practical ways for donors to support developing country partners in their efforts to reduce their vulnerability to climate variability and climate change.
Inducing environmental innovation is a significant challenge to policy-makers. Efforts to design public policies that address these issues are motivated by the fact that innovations can allow for improved environmental quality at lower cost. However, the relationship between environmental policy and technological innovation remains an area in which empirical evidence is scant. Increased attention should be paid to the design characteristics of public policies that are likely to affect the ‘type’ of innovation induced. The work presented in this book is brought together in five substantive chapters: environmental policy design characteristics and their role in inducing innovation, the role of public policies (including multilateral agreements) in encouraging transfer of environmental technologies, followed by three ‘sectoral’ studies of innovation in alternative fuel vehicles, solid waste management and recycling, and green (sustainable) chemistry.
This publication presents new measures and new ways of looking at traditional indicators. It builds on 50 years of indicator development by OECD and goes beyond R&D to describe the broader context in which innovation occurs. It includes some experimental indicators that provide insight into new areas of policy interest. It highlights measurement gaps and proposes directions for advancing the measurement agenda.
This publication begins by describing innovation today. It looks at what is driving innovation in firms, and how the scientific and research landscape is being reconfigured by convergence, interdisciplinarity and the new geography of innovation hot spots. It presents broader measures of innovation, for example using new indicators of investment in intangible assets and trademarks.
The book presents a major meta-analysis of 'value of a statistical life' (VSL) estimates derived from surveys where people around the world have been asked about their willingness to pay for small reduction in mortality risks. The analysis seeks to explain the differences in the estimates, for example across countries. Differences in incomes and the magintude of the risk reduction people have been asked to value were found to be the factors having the strongest impact on VSL, but a number of other policy-relevant factors are also important. Based on the meta-analysis, and a broad review of the literature, the book also presents clear advice on how VSL values best can be used in assessments of environmental, health and transport policies, such as in cost-benefit analyses. Using explicit VSL estimates to quantify the benefits to society of fatality risk reductions can play an important role in the development of more cost-effective public policies.
A fundamental transformation is required in the way we produce, deliver and consume energy. The current energy system is highly dependent on fossil fuels, whose combustion accounted for 84 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions in 2009. Global demand for energy is rapidly increasing, because of population and economic growth, especially in large emerging market economies, which will account for 90 per cent of energy demand growth to 2035. At the same time, 1.3 billion people worldwide still lack access to electricity.
The OECD and IEA have released the joint report Green Growth Studies: Energy, which highlights the challenges facing energy producers and users, and how they can be addressed using green growth policies.