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Latvia has come a long way in improving its environmental performance and the well-being of the population. Large amounts of investment have helped increase the use of renewables, improve energy efficiency of homes, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and extend access to water and waste services. However, convergence with more advanced OECD economies is far from being accomplished. Forestry and agriculture play a key economic role, but exert increasing pressures on biodiversity. Mainstreaming biodiversity considerations into economic development policies should be a priority. Accelerating the transition towards a low-carbon and circular economy will require major investment in sustainable infrastructure, more waste prevention and recycling and stronger economic instruments. This is the first Environmental Performance Review of Latvia. It evaluates progress towards sustainable development and green growth, with special features on waste and circular economy, and biodiversity conservation and sustainable use.

Agriculture, with its growing contribution to global greenhouse gas emissions and opportunities to mitigate emissions, can help close the gap between existing global mitigation efforts and those that are needed to keep global warming to between 1.5 °C and 2 °C by the end of the century. Global scale and farm scale analyses are used to evaluate both the effectiveness of different policy options to reduce agricultural emissions, and the impact on competitiveness, farm income, food security, and government finances. In order to contribute to global mitigation efforts, countries will need to design agricultural policy measures that can navigate these trade-offs within the context of their national policy priorities and objectives. As most countries have not yet implemented policies to reduce emissions from agriculture, the analyses provided here come at an opportune time to inform this policy development.

This report presents the objectives, methodology, procedures and main findings of the OECD project 'Strengthening public finance capacity for green investments in the EECCA countries'. Between 2016-19, the project aimed to help set the partner countries (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Moldova) on a sustainable path of development by reducing the energy and carbon intensity of their economies. Working with the relevant ministry in each country, the project designed public investment programmes in line with good international practices. These programmes sought to address key objectives of the countries' environmental and climate-related policies. The Clean Public Transport Programmes focus specifically on reducing air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from the target sector, primarily in large urban areas. They aim to demonstrate how to use scarce public funds to encourage private sector investment in projects that generate significant environmental and socio-economic benefits alike.

This report discusses the main results of a project on how an influx of funds could spur development of cleaner public transport, and reduce air pollution and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in large urban centres in Kyrgyzstan, by providing an analysis for designing a green public investment programme in this sector. This sector represents an opportunity for Kyrgyzstan to address key objectives in its environmental and climate-related policies as part of the country’s ambitions to transition to a green economic path of development. The investment programme is also designed to support the modernisation of the urban transport fleet in the country and stimulate the domestic market to shift to modern buses powered by cleaner fuels. The programme is foreseen to be implemented in two phases: the first covers the cities of Bishkek and Osh and the second extends to areas outside of the initial pilot city centres (pilot city suburbs as well as inter-city transport). These investments are expected to result in significant environmental, public service and socio-economic benefits.

This report discusses the main results of a project on how an influx of funds could spur development of cleaner public transport, and reduce air pollution and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in large urban centres in Moldova, by providing an analysis for designing a green public investment programme in this sector. This sector represents an opportunity for Moldova to address key objectives in its environmental and climate-related policies as part of the country’s ambitions to transition to a green economic path of development. The investment programme is also designed to support the modernisation of the urban transport fleet in the country and stimulate the domestic market to shift to modern buses powered by clean fuels. The programme is foreseen to be implemented in two phases: the first covers the cities of Chisinau and Balti and the second extends to areas outside of the initial pilot city centres (pilot city suburbs as well as inter-city transport). These investments are expected to result in significant environmental, public service and socio-economic benefits.

For most countries in the Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia (EECCA) region, mining is an important economic sector that contributes to employment and public revenue. Despite mining’s potential to cause long-term negative environmental impacts, governments in the region have a vital role to play in supporting better environmental performance in the sector and ensuring the industry can be a progressive part of a greener economy. This report examines the environmental impacts of mining in the EECCA and provides policy makers with guidance to reconcile environmental and competitiveness objectives in the mining sector.

Recent digital innovations provide opportunities to deliver better policies for the agriculture sector by helping to overcome information gaps and asymmetries, lower policy-related transaction costs, and enable people with different preferences and incentives to work better together. Drawing on ten illustrative case studies and unique new data gathered via an OECD questionnaire on agri-environmental policy organisations' experiences with digital tools, this report explores opportunities to improve current agricultural and agri-environmental policies, and to deliver new, digitally enabled and information-rich policy approaches. It also considers challenges that organisations may face to make greater use of digital tools for policy, as well as new risks which increased use of digital tools may bring. The report provides practical advice on how policy makers can address challenges and mitigate risks to ensure digital opportunities for policy are realised in practice. Finally, the report briefly considers the broader regulatory and policy environment underpinning digitalisation of the agriculture sector, with the view to ensuring that use of digital tools for agricultural and agri-environmental policy remains coherent with the digitalisation of agriculture more generally.

As the world's premier forum for international economic co-operation, the G20 plays a critical role in helping to achieve the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Based on robust evidence and available data, this report examines how the G20's contributions to the global goals across key sectors are already making a difference, while also suggesting where it could go further in leading by example to support the global goals. Collectively, G20 members account for around 85% of global gross domestic product, 75% of world trade and 80% of global carbon dioxide emissions – to name just a few areas of the G20's influence. This report, commissioned by the Government of Japan in support of its 2019 G20 Presidency, takes stock of the G20's progress to date against its Action Plan on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.