Key resources

At this critical moment, with the urgent need to turn climate ambitions into practical action and outcomes, the OECD is building on its decades of experience on climate policy to ramp up its contribution on climate action. Find the latest OECD reports, discover our key initiatives and browse a range of insights on accelerating the global effort to combat climate change.

Discover Key OECD initiatives

The OECD supports and helps drive higher levels of ambition and tangible outcomes – on mitigation, adaptation and resilience, and financing – that better align with the collective goals of the Paris Agreement.

The Inclusive Forum on Carbon Mitigation Approaches (IFCMA) is an initiative designed to help improve the global impact of emissions reduction efforts around the world through better data and information sharing, evidence-based mutual learning and inclusive multilateral dialogue. It brings together all relevant policy perspectives from a diverse range of countries from around the world, participating on an equal footing basis, to take stock of and consider the effectiveness of different carbon mitigation approaches.

The Climate Change Expert Group (CCXG) is a group of government delegates and experts from developed and developing countries. The aim of the group is to promote dialogue on and enhance understanding of politically important technical issues in the international climate change negotiations and for the implementation of the Paris Agreement.

The OECD’s Horizontal Project on Climate and Economic Resilience is using the multidisciplinary reach of the OECD to support governments in driving the swift transformational change needed to tackle climate change. The project will provide analysis and insights for governments looking at the whole climate picture: driving a rapid and resilient transition to net-zero while building resilience to physical climate impacts, all in the context of lingering effects of COVID-19 and the far-reaching effects of Russia’s unprovoked war of aggression in Ukraine.

The OECD International Programme for Action on Climate (IPAC) supports country progress towards net-zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and a more resilient economy by 2050. Through regular monitoring, policy evaluation and feedback on results and best practices, IPAC helps countries strengthen and co-ordinate their climate action. It complements and supports the UNFCCC and the Paris Agreement monitoring frameworks.

Discover OECD publications

OECD publications aim to make available to a wider readership selected studies on environmental issues drawing on the work of the OECD on climate action.

This report presents aggregate trends of annual climate finance provided and mobilised by developed countries for developing countries for the period 2013-2021. It includes breakdowns by climate theme, sector, financial instrument and recipient country grouping for the period 2016-2021. The report also provides key recommendations for international providers to increase financing towards adaptation and more effectively mobilise private finance for climate action, which are both important policy priorities and current bottlenecks.

This report explores evidence-based action areas to increase and accelerate the mobilisation of private finance for climate action in developing countries, and the role of international public finance providers in doing so. It draws on best-available data to provide disaggregated analysis of the sectoral, geographic and other features of private finance mobilised by public climate finance and presents key economy-wide, sector-specific, and institutional challenges to private finance mobilisation.

This report analyses current trends of adaptation finance provided and mobilised by developed countries for developing countries. It explores potential action areas for international providers to scale up funding for climate change adaptation, including by unlocking the potential of the private sector. The analysis is anchored in the context of the USD 100 billion climate finance goal, initially set for 2020 and extended to 2025, while also providing insights to the broader and longer-term objective of supporting developing countries’ ability to adapt to the adverse impacts of climate change.

In 2023, the impacts of climate change have been dramatic worldwide. This year, the Earth experienced the hottest three-month period on record, with unprecedented surface temperatures and extreme weather events. Heatwaves, wildfires, floods, and hurricanes have raged across the globe, destroying lives and livelihoods. Accelerating and unprecedented climate impacts are confirmed by OECD data. Systematic data on the evolution of climate-related hazards from countries covered under the International Programme for Action on Climate (IPAC), considering both OECD and OECD partner countries (including accession countries), confirm that climate impacts are accelerating and becoming even more extreme, exposing a greater share of the world’s population and land surface area.

This guidance sets out elements of credible corporate climate transition plans, which aim to align with the temperature goal of the Paris Agreement. Such plans are needed to address the growing risk of greenwashing in transition finance and facilitate a global, whole-of-economy climate transition.

This annual report monitors and evaluates agricultural policies in 54 countries, including the 38 OECD countries, the five non-OECD EU Member States, and 11 emerging economies. It finds that support to agriculture has reached record levels amidst subsequent crises, although the increase in support has been less than the sector’s growth.

Forms of sustainable finance have grown rapidly in recent years, as a growing number of institutional investors and funds now incorporate various Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) investing approaches. This growth has been spurred by shifts in demand from across the finance ecosystem, driven both by the search for better long-term financial value, and a pursuit of better alignment with values.

This report looks at recent trends in economic recovery and development finance and the growing Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) financing* gap, describes aspects related to financing climate transitions, and proposes areas for possible G20 actions.

This report provides a global assessment of wildfire risk, underlining the urgent need for governments to scale up climate change adaptation efforts to limit future wildfire risk and impacts. The report discusses the drivers behind the growing occurrence of extreme wildfires, including the role of climate change, and outlines their growing environmental, social and economic impacts

The OECD Review of Fisheries 2022 brings together and analyses data on fisheries management and support policies to inform decision makers and help foster sustainable and resilient fisheries that can provide jobs, food, and livelihoods for future generations

This factsheet is a collaboration between UNDP, OECD and UN Women and combines data from the UNDP-UN Women COVID-19 Global Gender Response Tracker and the OECD Green Recovery Database. It maps gender-sensitive and green measures from nearly 200 countries and territories. In doing so, this work identifies gaps and opportunities for policymaking in these areas, while highlighting innovative practices that governments have already taken to inspire further action.

This paper investigates the potential role and contribution of carbon pricing in transforming emission pathways towards net zero GHG emissions. It reviews carbon pricing’s impacts, overall and in the electricity sector in selected jurisdictions to date. The paper also analyses the current and potential application of emissions pricing (e.g. emissions trading schemes or carbon taxes) in food systems.

Agendas on climate change mitigation and plastic pollution have mostly developed independently. However, the two issues are linked. A key question in this context is: How do policies addressing climate change mitigation and plastic pollution interact? And how can policy makers make use of these interlinkages?

The OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises on Responsible Business Conduct are recommendations addressed by governments to multinational enterprises. They aim to encourage positive contributions enterprises can make to economic, environmental and social progress, and to minimise adverse impacts on matters covered by the Guidelines that may be associated with an enterprise’s operations, products and services.

Skills are vital for building resilient economies and societies. By helping individuals develop a diverse range of skills and empowering them to apply these skills effectively, skills policies play a crucial role in responding to emerging threats, such as environmental degradation and harmful applications of technologies used to collect, generate, and exchange information. This edition of the Skills Outlook highlights the importance of supporting individuals in acquiring a wide range of skills, at varying levels of proficiency, to promote economic and social resilience

The green transition is changing jobs, skills, and local economies. It poses new challenges but also opportunities, both of which will differ across places within countries. This report, Job Creation and Local Economic Development 2023: Bridging the Great Green Divide, provides novel evidence on those risks and opportunities across regions in 30 OECD countries.

What challenges and opportunities does the green transition entail for Latin America and the Caribbean? This 15th edition of the Latin American Economic Outlook explores options for the region to recast its production models, transform its energy matrix and create better jobs in the process.

The world of work is rapidly changing. Digitalisation, globalisation, and demographic change are having a profound impact on the type and quality of jobs available and the skills required to perform them. The extent to which individuals, companies and whole economies can reap the benefits of these changes will depend on the readiness of adult learning systems to help people develop and maintain relevant skills over their working careers.

Since the adoption of the Paris Agreement, governments and economic actors have increasingly been setting greenhouse gas emissions reduction or net zero targets. Amidst risks of delayed action and greenwashing, there is need to understand whether climate related targets and transition plans are consistent with the Paris Agreement.

Climate change mitigation scenarios are a key forward-looking input for a range of financial sector analyses and assessments. The inaccurate use of mitigation scenarios can, however, contribute to unintended incentives, environmental integrity concerns, and greenwashing risks.

Climate shocks such as extreme floods and storms, droughts and heatwaves have complex, inter-connected and far-reaching consequences across multiple policy sectors and systems. Shocks in other systems, such as financial or health crises, can, in turn, affect climate challenges. Applying a systems approach to climate change helps policymakers understand linkages between issues that are treated separately and propose cross-sectoral, multi-disciplinary solutions in cities.

This report explores the ways donors can best support sustainable and effective climate-related capacity development in SIDS, in terms (1) access to climate finance; (2) climate data and services; (3) working with non-governmental partners; (4) regional and triangular approaches; and (5) effective delivery of capacity development. Based on OECD data, it provides an overview of bilateral official development assistance trends for climate-related capacity development in SIDS during 2015-21. Drawing from donor project and programme evaluations, interviews, two case studies and a literature review, the report identifies good practices and makes recommendations to donors.

This paper examines how the loss of biodiversity – and of the ecosystem services it provides – affects the various dimensions of fragility, amplifying existing risks and diminishing coping capacity in fragile contexts. It calls on all stakeholders in development co-operation to align (i) efforts to manage natural resources in a sustainable manner, (ii) measures protecting and restoring biodiversity, and (iii) actions addressing the causes of multidimensional fragility.

Climate-related development finance to fragile contexts has increased from both members of the Development Assistance Committee and multilateral providers. However, fragile contexts – and extremely fragile contexts in particular – remain under-served by climate-related development finance relative to other developing countries. In fragile contexts it can be hard to prioritise action on climate and environmental fragility, and difficult to access the financing necessary to do so. Providers can help address the underlying policy, financial and structural challenges, in order to better tailor climate-related development finance to the needs of fragile contexts.

This report provides an overview of the main trends of annual development finance with biodiversity-related objectives for the period 2015 to 2021, from a range of sources: bilateral Development Assistance Committee (DAC) members and non-DAC members, South-South and triangular co-operation providers, multilateral development banks (MDBs) and other multilateral institutions, private finance mobilised by development finance, and private philanthropy.

Discover OECD data

OECD data and indicators on the environmental, economic, financial and social dimensions of climate change provide essential information for effective climate policies. Navigate the data, explore emissions by country and by sector, and countries’ energy mix, and learn more about country policies including carbon pricing, fossil fuel subsidies and investment in renewable energy.

The Environment at a Glance Indicators provide real-time interactive on-line access to the latest comparable OECD-country data on the environment from the OECD Core Set of Environmental Indicators – a tool to evaluate environmental performance in countries and to track the course towards sustainable development.

The Climate Action Dashboard by the OECD features key indicators to track progress towards climate objectives and provide a snapshot of country climate action. It is one of the four components of the International Programme for Action on Climate, set up to help countries pursue progress towards net-zero greenhouse gas emissions and a more resilient economy by 2050.

The OECD provides a platform to help governments evaluate their allocation of scarce budgetary resources to fossil fuels and their alignment with environmental and well-being goals. To do so, the OECD Inventory of Support Measures for Fossil Fuels documents and estimates government measures that encourage fossil-fuel production or consumption relative to renewable alternatives.

Despite the key financial role that regions and cities play in the carbon-neutral transition and the global response to climate change due, in large part, to their jurisdiction over crucial adaptation and mitigation-relevant policy areas (land-use planning, waste management, transport) there is a lot that we do not know about their financial role.

Discover OECD voices

The OECD Environment Focus blog aims to increase dialogue on a variety of environmental topics among policy makers, experts and the general public. Blogs are authored by OECD policy experts and invited guests who write about their current field of research and aim to reach a wider global audience to generate discussion.

The next round of international climate negotiations at COP28 in Dubai mark a critical juncture. They should prepare the ground for countries to step up their climate ambition and action in response to the first global stocktake of efforts under the Paris Agreement. This blog explains why it is important to seize this pivotal opportunity to course correct.

“Not enough, too slow, too late. Welcome to my world!” With these words, Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck reflected on Germany’s current climate policy at the launch of the 2023 OECD Environmental Performance Review of Germany and the OECD Economic Survey of Germany in Berlin in May 2023. He deplored the many obstacles the country faces as it tries to accelerate its climate action.

Record-breaking temperatures and frequent climate disasters have become a new unsettling reality, causing billion-dollar losses and reversing global development. In response, corporates are stepping up action on climate change. Although still not ubiquitous, net-zero commitments are rapidly becoming commonplace in many companies. The Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) estimates that companies with science-based targets now represent 34% of the global economy by market capitalisation.

Students around the world who have recently finished their secondary education are about to face a new phase of their lives. Those planning to continue their studies, whether in a university setting or through a vocational education and training course, are making choices that will impact their future career prospects.

Key resources

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