One of the of the objectives of GREEN Action Task Force is to integrate environmental, economic and sectoral policies for green growth. Its work concerns:

“Smart” regulation of environmental impacts promoted: Work will continue to support countries in establishing differentiated, effective and efficient regimes for strengthening environment and economic performance of industrial and energy production operations and large emission sources. Work will be undertaken to support reform of regulatory regimes for large emission sources, including State Owned Enterprises (SOE), with a view to enhancing their effectiveness and efficiency, reducing administrative and compliance costs to industry while not compromising environmental objectives.

• Environmental compliance assurance and environmental liability regimes strengthened:

Strengthening the efficiency and effectiveness of enforcement institutions and instruments, such as e.g. environmental taxes, other monetary payments and penalties for pollution, will be carried out to enhance compliance with the environmental requirements. Special efforts will be attached to working with business associations as agents of compliance promotion. This work will also address the issue of environmental liability. This task will be done to take into account the provisions of the EU Environmental Liability Directive. Furthermore, work will be carried out to enhance administrative capacity for compliance assurance, including by developing interaction between relevant authorities.

• Greening the extractive industries:

The work under this element will analyse approaches from OECD countries that can reduce the environmental impact of mining and the possible application of these approaches in Eurasia against the current approaches in these countries. Analysis will involve identifying a mix of policies, laws and regulations that will promote better compliance with standards and the development and deployment of new green technologies. The second phase will also include the assessment of the effectiveness of economic instruments applied to mining (such as, among others, rents, royalties, and taxes) and the review and identification of optimal financial mechanisms to reduce mining pollution in the two countries selected above.

• Supporting the development of Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) Systems:

The objective of this work will be to assist countries in the region to develop transparent, sound and sustainable Extended Producers Responsibility (EPR) schemes for priority waste streams, such as for example Electric and Electronic Equipment Waste, end of life vehicles, or packaging. It will also assist designing legal and institutional arrangements for monitoring performance, and sharing experience from applying the systems to various products and product groups. Experience from EaP countries that piloted EPR schemes will be shared.

• Analysis of trends in green investment policies in the target countries and risk of “stranded” assets:

This work will review existing studies and carry additional analysis of the potential impacts of global and national climate-related policies on existing and new fossil energy-based infrastructure whose costs may not be fully recovered because of reduced demand/revenues or early retirement (“stranded assets”). The work will look at challenges for carbon dependent countries and structural, fiscal, social and other implications, including systemic risk of continuing investment in high-carbon economy versus (partial) divestment of coal, oil and gas-related assets.

• Monitoring of progress at the economy-environment nexus:

This work will include assistance to identify performance indicators and to set systemic data collection and processing mechanisms. Based on progress achieved under the EaP GREEN project, the development of country reports based on Green Growth Indicators will be facilitated. This will serve to promote policy debates on green growth and enable progress evaluation, peer review and benchmarking mechanism. 

RELATED PROGRAMMES

• Corporate governance of state-owned enterprises 
• Environment in emerging and transition economies
• Resource productivity and waste
• Green Growth Indicators
• Green growth and sustainable development