IMPLEMENTATION OF THE OECD ENVIRONMENTAL STRATEGY
FOR THE FIRST DECADE OF THE 21ST CENTURY

OECD environment ministers met on 20-21 April 2004 to assess their progress in implementing the ambitious OECD Environmental Strategy for the First Decade of the 21st Century, adopted in 2001. They identified areas where they were "on track", and shared experiences on how to overcome obstacles to better environmental policies.

The three key policy issues for discussion at the ministerial meeting were:

• Assessment and Reporting: Are We on Track for Implementing the OECD Environmental Strategy? When OECD environment ministers last met, they made national and international environmental commitments to maintain the integrity of ecosystems, decouple environmental degradation from economic growth, enhance the quality of life, monitor their progress, and improve global environmental interdependence. This meeting provided a key opportunity three years in to the implementation of the OECD Environmental Strategy for OECD environment ministers and their partners to examine progress made, and identify ways forward.
  
• Efficiency and Effectiveness: Improving Domestic Policies. The policies used to protect the environment need to be environmentally effective, while also being low cost and addressing social equity concerns. Inefficiencies in environmental policies, such as exemptions to environmental taxes, continue to hamper their effectiveness. Environment ministers shared their experiences with enhancing the effectiveness and economic efficiency of policies, while overcoming obstacles to policy reform.
  
• Partnerships: the Environment in a Globalising Economy. Environment ministries can not achieve environmental sustainability on their own, but increasingly need to work more closely with colleagues in other ministries (e.g. foreign affairs, fiscal affairs, economics, industry, agriculture, transport), in other countries, and with non-government partners. Environment ministers were invited to discuss their experiences in such partnerships, in particular in addressing the challenges of globalisation.

During the working lunches and dinner, Ministers discussed OECD’s role in implementing the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation from the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), the challenges facing environment ministers in the context of policy integration, and how to overcome obstacles to reform environmentally harmful subsidies.