The gas industry is perhaps Russia’s least reformed major sector. Prices are regulated, exports are monopolised and the domestic market is dominated by a state-controlled, vertically integrated monopolist, OAO Gazprom. Gazprom combines commercial and regulatory functions, and maintains tight...

This document analyses aspects of environmental policy in Belgium. Some specific examples are drawn from policies on water in the different regions that make up the Belgian Federation (to whom much environmental policy is delegated), and transport and congestion policy in the Brussels region is...

Korea’s greenhouse gas emissions almost doubled between 1990 and 2005, the highest growth rate in the OECD area. Korea recently set a target of reducing emissions by 30% by 2020 relative to a “business as usual” baseline, implying a 4% cut from the 2005 level. Achieving this objective in a...

The degradation of the environment due to climate change and pollution can harm living standards and damage growth prospects. In Belgium, one of the most densely populated OECD countries, pressure on the environment is particularly strong, and is reinforced by the high energy intensity of the...

Sweden has developed an extensive and sound policy framework to limit greenhouse gas emissions. It is now one of the OECD countries with the lowest greenhouse gas emissions per capita and it has successfully managed to decouple GDP growth from emissions growth. However, as Sweden has already...

Sustainable development is a key theme in policy making in Norway. Although it owes a considerable part of its wealth to the carbon-based economy, Norway gives priority to the objectives embodied in the OECD Green Growth Strategy and sees itself as a pioneer in some areas. The sustainable...

Korea, which has had the highest growth rate of greenhouse gas emissions in the OECD area since 1990, adopted an ambitious Green Growth Strategy in 2009. It aims at reducing emissions by 30% by 2020 relative to a “business as usual” scenario, implying a 4% cut from the 2005 level. The...

Denmark’s green growth strategy focuses on moving the energy system away from fossil fuels and investing in green technologies, while limiting greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. On the whole, current policies should allow Denmark to reach near-term climate change targets, but may not be...

Cross-country analysis of the economic effects of environmental policies is limited by the lack of reliable, comparable measures of the stringency of environmental policies. This paper attempts to fill this gap, by constructing new quantitative indexes of environmental policy stringency (EPS)....