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This report offers guidance on how to prepare regions and cities for the transition towards a climate-neutral and circular economy by 2050 and is directed to all policymakers seeking to identify and implement concrete and ambitious transition pathways. It describes how cities, regions, and rural areas can manage the transition in a range of policy domains, including energy supply, conversion, and use, the transformation of mobility systems, and land use practices. It takes stock of discussions between academic and policy experts emanating from a series of high-level expert workshops organised in 2019 by the OECD and the European Commission. Bringing together frontier thinking and practical examples regarding the transition to a climate-neutral economy, the transition to a circular economy, the transition in cities, the transition in rural areas, and financing and scale-up of transition action, this report identifies cross-cutting lessons to support urban, regional, and rural decision makers in managing trade-offs and in promoting, facilitating and enabling environmental and energy transitions.

This report analyses future energy-use in the shipping sector of the Nordic region. It centres on pathways that could allow the Nordic shipping sector to meet energy and environmental policy goals, including energy diversification, cutting air pollution and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. It details the feasible technology options currently available, the status of their adoption and government plans aimed at influencing future developments in this sector. Finally, it assesses implications for policy making for a rapid transition to cleaner maritime shipping. The Nordic region is pioneering efforts to reduce the environmental impact of maritime shipping, making the findings of this report relevant around the globe.

Luxembourg has made progress in decoupling environmental pressures from economic growth, treating wastewater and managing waste and materials. It has also positioned itself as an international centre for green finance. Yet, it remains one of the most carbon- and material-intensive economies in the OECD. The country is a crossroads for freight traffic and attracts thousands of daily cross-border commuters. This exacerbates greenhouse gas emissions, air pollution and road congestion. Urban sprawl, landscape fragmentation and agriculture exert strong pressures on biodiversity. To steer its economy towards a greener model, Luxembourg has set ambitious environmental objectives. Greening taxation, providing stronger price signals, promoting eco-innovation and the circular economy, mainstreaming biodiversity into all policies, and investing in low-carbon infrastructure and sustainable mobility, should be priorities. This is the third Environmental Performance Review of Luxembourg. It evaluates progress towards green growth and sustainable development, with special chapters focusing on two major issues: air quality and mobility, and biodiversity.

Building green is not only imperative to achieve global climate and development commitments in this 'decade for delivery', but will also be critical to sustain socio-economic development during the COVID-19 recovery. Private investment in particular is needed to bridge the infrastructure investment gap, given institutional investors’ large pools of long-term capital. After several years of efforts to upscale institutional investment in infrastructure, where does the level of investment stand today? This report provides a first-of-its-kind empirical assessment of investment in infrastructure by institutional investors domiciled in OECD and G20 countries, presenting a snapshot from February 2020. Based on a new detailed view of investment channels, financial instruments, sectoral allocations, regional preferences and trends, the report provides guidance on policy levers and priorities to scale-up institutional investment in green infrastructure.

A number of countries have created official definitions of sustainable finance as well as more comprehensive classification systems, referred to as sustainable finance taxonomies. This report maps sustainable finance definitions and taxonomies in five jurisdictions: the European Union, People’s Republic of China, Japan, France and the Netherlands. Taxonomies answer a need for greater certainty on the environmental sustainability of different types of investments. When appropriately designed, they can improve market clarity, bring confidence and assurance to investors, and facilitate the measurement and tracking of sustainable finance flows. The report lays out preliminary considerations for good design of taxonomies, which can support policy makers to develop and grow sustainable finance markets to help achieve environmental and sustainable development goals. It also identifies differences among the taxonomies in scope as well as commonalities. These commonalities could provide a basis for creating comparable frameworks that facilitate international investment while also reflecting differing national circumstances.

Greece has undergone extensive reforms to cope with a deep recession over the past decade. It has made progress in decoupling air pollutant emissions from GDP and improving the conservation status of natural habitats. However, the country faces challenges in managing waste and water, and addressing air pollution. It is highly vulnerable to the impact of climate change. The energy mix has shifted towards cleaner fuels, but the economy strongly relies on fossil fuels. Progress towards sustainable development requires effective implementation of ambitious climate mitigation and adaptation policies, strengthening environmental governance and enhancing coherence between environmental and energy, transport, agriculture and tourism policies. This is the third Environmental Performance Review of Greece. It evaluates progress towards sustainable development and green growth, with special features on climate change mitigation and adaptation, and biodiversity conservation and sustainable use.