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The OECD recognises the important role that countries play in addressing issues related to sustainable development such as the global climate change problem and new energy options. The Organisation’s objective is to help its members prepare for the future by supporting them with sound policy analysis and options to achieve their goals in an environmentally-effective and economically-efficient manner. A number of projects are underway to implement this across several of the Organisation’s directorates and in the specialised agencies associated with the OECD. For information on initiatives members have taken in the area of educational facilities, see the Environment section at www.oecd.org/edu/facilities/resources.
In the Environment Directorate, the Working Party on Global and Structural Policies held a workshop in 2006 where experts focused on estimating the economic benefits of climate change and the challenges of estimating the social costs of carbon. New work for 2007-08 is focusing on cities and climate change, exploring local scale benefits of climate policies, including global mitigation and local adaptation.
The OECD Environmental Outlook report, for release in early 2008, will provide projections of developments in the economic, social and technological forces driving environmental change to 2030, and examine the policies that can be used to address the most pressing environmental problems.
Peer-reviewed surveys of environmental performance in individual OECD countries and selected non-OECD countries are regularly carried out under the auspices of the Working Party on Environmental Performance. These provide specific analysis and recommendations to help countries improve their performance with respect to their national and international environmental commitments.
The Directorate for Science, Technology and Industry has developed and publishes regularly patent-based indicators of innovation related to the environment as part of the Compendium of Patent Statistics. This includes indicators on environmental technology, nuclear energy, wind energy and fuel cells.
A report was completed by the Committee on Science Technology Policy in 2006 on innovation in energy technology. In addition, the committee’s newly created Working Party of Nanotechnology will examine how nanotechnology may contribute to a low-carbon society, notably in helping to reduce resource use and energy consumption; it aims to foster the responsible development and use of this technology, enabling such potential impacts to emerge in the future.
The Directorate for Public Governance and Territorial Development has implemented several projects and activities from the viewpoint of urban policy. A special session on climate change and cities took place at the OECD international conference "What Policies for Globalising Cities?" in March 2007. During the conference, mayors and ministers asked the OECD to host a permanent joint Roundtable for Urban Strategy of Mayors and Ministers to produce evidence and policy analysis to feed the dialogue between policy actors in urban areas in the following areas: urban competitiveness, local autonomy and local finance, climate change and disasters, migration, transport and mobility.
The OECD Annual Meeting of Sustainable Development Experts brings together delegates from across different policy areas to discuss issues of a cross-cutting nature related to sustainable development. Two roundtables on sustainable development are scheduled for autumn 2007, the first on biofuels and the second on mobilising investment for clean energy technology.
The International Futures Programme under the Secretary-General also has several relevant projects under way. Firstly, it is co-ordinating a project across the OECD on The Bioeconomy to 2030: Designing a Policy Agenda. Another, a two-year project on Infrastructures to 2030 which is nearing completion, assesses inter alia the impact of climate change on water and water treatment requirements worldwide, as well as the level of investment needed to meet those requirements.
In May 2006, the OECD Global Science Forum convened the “Conference on Scientific Challenges for Energy Research”. The maturity, feasibility, principal scientific obstacles, and research and development needs for new technologies were discussed in the areas of liquid fossil fuels and biofuels, coal, nuclear energy, carbon capture and storage, solar power, electricity networks and storage, and hydrogen and fuel cells.
The Africa Partnership Forum, a joint collaborative effort between the OECD and the World Bank, developed a report looking at climate change mitigation options and clean energy development in Africa. The report also addresses mainstreaming climate concerns into development, and providing resources for climate risk management.
In addition to these activities, the OECD carries out work relevant to sustainability in the areas of trade and agriculture, economics, development co-operation, tax policy and administration, nuclear energy and transportation.
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