A healthy environment is a pre-requisite for a strong and healthy economy, and both are needed for sustainable development. The OECD provides a forum for countries to share their experiences and to develop concrete recommendations for the development and implementation of policies that can address environmental problems in an effective and economically efficient way.

While OECD countries have successfully tackled some of the environmental problems they face, many others remain or are emerging. Increasingly the problems they face are more complex, and will require co-operative action at the international level (e.g. climate change) or co-ordinated packages of policies across regions and/or sectors (e.g. biodiversity, agricultural pollution, transport).

OECD supports its governments in addressing these problems primarily through the work of its Environment Policy Committee, through Joint Working Parties on Agriculture and Environment and on Trade and Environment and through Joint Meetings of Tax and Environment Experts. Overall, these activities contribute to the cross-cutting work of the OECD on sustainable development.

More information is available under the headings on the left.

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