Clean air, clean water, fewer toxic emissions and less household waste are among the key environmental policy objectives that most OECD governments have been pursuing over the past three decades. This effort to take more account of the environmental costs of economic growth has been pursued in a...

This paper analyses Sweden’s policies for addressing a range of key environmental challenges. Although Sweden has a deliberately comprehensive approach to establishing its environmental objectives and policies, some issues have received particular attention. These include acidification and...

This paper analyses aspects of US environmental policy, including, among others, policy on air and water quality, water supply in certain areas, climate change and greenhouse gas emissions. Particular attention is paid to certain policies in agriculture and road transport, sectors with an...

Considering the costs and risks of inaction, ambitious action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is economically rational. However, success in abating world emissions will ultimately require a least-cost set of policy instruments that is applied as widely as possible across all emission sources...

This paper analyses aspects of environmental policy in Denmark, including, among others, policy on surface water quality, clean air and support for renewable energy, waste disposal and transport policy. Environmental policies are an important priority in Denmark, with implementation often highly...

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...

This document analyses the economic impacts of selected environmental policies in Austria with an emphasis on the use of economic instruments and incentives versus command-and-control measures. An important theme in a federation like the Austrian is the institutional complexity involved in many...

This paper reviews several aspects of Poland’s environmental policies. Its main finding is that substantial progress has been made in dealing with the environmentally unfriendly legacy from the past. Poland has successfully combined emission permits based on environmental quality standards,...

This document analyses aspects of natural resource and environmental policies in Australia, focusing on water resource management, salinity and climate change mitigation. The state and central governments have not made use of their taxation powers in these domains. The cap-and-trade system for...

This paper proposes an analytical framework for assessing policies that will contribute to a better integration of environmental externalities in the pursuit of economic efficiency and growth objectives. The framework consists of two parts. The first part lays out principles and criteria for the...