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This report provides a brief review of how national government policies and guidelines apply to or regulate the use of environmental labelling and information schemes (ELIS) in selected OECD countries. The report reviews definitions relevant to environmental claims and identifies four types of potentially false or misleading environmental claims. The report also reviews countries’ different approaches to guidance and regulations relating to such claims, as well as approaches to monitoring and enforcement of compliance with rules and guidance. Examples of court action relating to the use of consumer protection laws for environmental claims in several countries are described. Based on the reports available, it is not possible to assess to what extent the enforcement processes have been effective in improving the overall quality of environmental claims. The report also notes the extensive similarities in how different national guidelines categorise misleading environmental claims, perhaps beacuase many of the guidelines are derived in part from the International Organization for Standardization’s (ISO) 14020 series of internationally-agreed standards. Moreover the report acknowledges that several attempts have been made towards harmonisation across countries concerning environmental criteria, mainly concerning eco-labelling schemes and organic agriculture standards. There appear to be strong incentives for this type of cross-country certification, including reduced administrative costs and a potential for increased trade of environmentally-certified goods. This makes further harmonisation of criteria for self-reported environmental claims a real possibility. The ongoing pursuit of harmonisation regionally, or bilaterally, might be a first step forward in such a process.

Environment

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In order to help address climate finance-related information needs under the UNFCCC, this paper explores the extent to which currently-available secondary data make it possible to estimate private finance mobilised by developed countries for climate action in developing countries. This is done by testing the implementation of two approaches: the first one based on an analysis of an investment-related commercial database, and the second one based on the use of publicly-available private finance leverage ratios. Due to data constraints, the focus is on renewable energy as a sub-set of climate mitigation activities. Volumes of private finance estimated as mobilised under the first approach are very partial, due to limitations of the database used, while the second approach results in highly inaccurate extrapolations due to a current lack of empirically-robust publicly-available private finance leverage ratios. These findings highlight the need for improved primary data collection, in particular by public climate finance providers on private co-finance, building upon the recent progress already achieved by a number of bilateral and multilateral development finance institutions. Further, very careful and transparent use should be made of leverage ratios, as they are highly sensitive to both the underlying calculation methods (e.g. in terms of attribution of mobilised private finance among public actors involved), as well as to core characteristics of public finance that result from varying mandates of development agencies and institutions. In any case, amounts of private finance mobilised by public actors and interventions (and ratios that can be calculated on such basis) should not necessarily be interpreted as reflecting their respective abilities to achieve effective and transformational climate action, which requires monitoring of impacts over time.

Environment

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Tackling the problem of global climate change requires a high level of international cooperation. Many countries have pledged targets or actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the Appendices to the Copenhagen Accord. This analysis examines the costs and effectiveness of these pledges, using the OECD’s ENV-Linkages computable general equilibrium model. Several scenarios are analysed to evaluate the impacts of the range of pledges, the use of offsets, and linking emission trading systems. The results show that while the emission targets currently pledged by a wide range of countries under the Accord are an important and welcome start to a global solution, the pledges are not ambitious enough to put us on a pathway to limit average global temperature increase to below 2°C. This paper also analyses the economic impacts of the pledges, and estimates the costs of action at around 0.3% of GDP for both Annex I and non- Annex I countries and 0.5-0.6% of global real income (not taking into consideration the economic benefits from avoided damages from climate change). Furthermore, the analysis reveals that the potential for increased fiscal revenue or proceeds are substantial and for the Annex I group of countries can exceed 1% of GDP (or 400 billion USD) if mitigation actions are achieved through market instruments such as carbon taxes or cap-and-trade emission schemes with auctioned emission allowances.

Environment

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This global screening study makes a first estimate of the exposure of the world's large port cities to coastal flooding due to storm surge and damage due to high winds. This assessment also investigates how climate change is likely to impact each port city's exposure to coastal flooding by the 2070s, alongside subsidence and population growth and urbanisation. The study provides a much more comprehensive analysis than earlier assessments, focusing on the 136 port cities around the world that have more than one million inhabitants in 2005. The analysis demonstrates that a large number of people are already exposed to coastal flooding in large port cities. Across all cities, about 40 million people (0.6% of the global population or roughly 1 in 10 of the total port city population in the cities considered here) are exposed to a 1 in 100 year coastal flood event. For present-day conditions (2005), the top ten cities in terms of exposed population are estimated to be Mumbai, Guangzhou, Shanghai, Miami, Ho Chi Minh City, Kolkata, Greater New York, Osaka-Kobe, Alexandria and New Orleans; almost equally split between developed and developing countries. When assets are considered, the current distribution becomes more heavily weighted towards developed countries, as the wealth of the cities becomes important. The top 10 cities in terms of assets exposed are Miami, Greater New York, New Orleans, Osaka-Kobe, Tokyo, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Nagoya, Tampa-St Petersburg and Virginia Beach. These cities contain 60% of the total exposure, but are from only three (wealthy) countries: USA, Japan and the Netherlands. The total value of assets exposed in 2005 is across all cities considered here is estimated to be US$3,000 billion; corresponding to around 5% of global GDP in 2005 (both measured in international USD)...

Environment

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This paper explores methodological approaches that can be used to monitor and evaluate climate change adaptation initiatives at the projects and programme levels. It examines approaches that have been used in other areas of development practice to see what lessons have been learned that can inform the development of monitoring and evaluation frameworks targeted at adaptation. The paper focuses on three methodological challenges related to monitoring and evaluation that are particularly relevant for adaptation: i) assessing attribution, ii) establishing baselines and targets, and iii) dealing with long time horizons. The paper also considers the importance of on-going learning in evaluation and the benefit of applying a comprehensive approach to monitoring and evaluation, building on tested practices from participatory methods and social sciences techniques.

Environment