In July 2008, the Canadian province of British Columbia (BC) launched North America’s first revenue-neutral carbon tax reform. The tax, which applied to all combustion sources of all fossil fuels, was introduced at a rate of CAD 10 per tonne of CO2, with a schedule for annual increases of CAD...

Beginning in late 2008, Ireland experienced a fiscal crisis. This resulted in November 2010 in agreement between the Irish government and the European Central Bank, the European Commission and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) – known collectively as ‘the Troika’ – whereby the latter...

An ecosystem assessment is a social process through which the findings of science concerning the causes of ecosystem change, their consequences for human well-bring, and the management and policy options are evaluated. Ecosystem assessments can play an important role in synthesising and...

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,...

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,...

This review aims to improve our understanding of the implications of the insights from behavioural economics for environmental policy design. The review focuses on the question of incentive design in two broad areas — risk, conflict and cooperation; and mechanism design. A number of lessons...

Climate change has become a priority issue in global environmental governance and cities are important players. For over three decades, the OECD has been actively supporting member and non-member countries to design environmental policies that are both economically efficient and effective at...

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...

This study illustrates a methodology to assess economic impacts of climate change at city scale, focusing on sea level rise and storm surge. It is based on a statistical analysis of past storm surges in the studied city, matched to a geographical-information analysis of the population and asset...