Countries pledge to step up action on climate and environment

Ministers and high-level representatives from the OECD’s 38 member countries and the European Union, as well as Bulgaria, Croatia, Peru and Romania, committed in a formal OECD Declaration today to intensify their work on climate and the environment, including doing more to curb biodiversity loss, address plastic pollution, align finance with environmental objectives and accelerate climate change action with a view to keeping the 1.5°C temperature rise limit within reach.

The Ministerial Declaration was adopted at the closure of the OECD’s 30-31 March 2022 Environment Ministerial Meeting, attended by ministers responsible for the environment from OECD countries, the European Union, several non-member countries (Argentina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Croatia, Egypt, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Peru and Romania), and representatives of International Organisations.

​Download a copy of the complete Ministerial Declaration​

Countries committed in the Declaration to:

• Develop and implement effective and ambitious environmental and climate strategies aimed at achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, including through accelerated action in this critical decade with a view to keeping the limit of a 1.5°C temperature increase within reach.
• Strengthening efforts to align COVID-19 recovery plans with environmental and climate goals to build a green, inclusive and resilient recovery for all.
• Developing comprehensive and coherent life cycle approaches to tackle plastic pollution and promoting robust engagement in the intergovernmental negotiating committee to develop an internationally legally binding instrument on plastic pollution with the ambition of completing negotiations by the end of 2024. This reflects the findings of the OECD’s recently released Global Plastics Outlook, which shows that global plastic waste generation more than doubled from 2000 to 2019 to 353 million tonnes

Ministers also invited the OECD, through its Environment Policy Committee, to develop new work in a number of key areas, including:

• Updating OECD standards on the environment; developing a new global Environmental Outlook report on the state of the world’s environment, as well as work on the twin challenges of the digital and net-zero transitions, on trade and environment, on reform of environmentally harmful subsidies, on the environmental aspects of effective ocean management, and consider the possible development of an OECD Recommendation on Plastics.

Ministers invited the OECD to strengthen existing work in a number of key areas including:

• Carbon pricing, the OECD Horizontal Project on Climate and Economic Resilience and the International Programme for Action on Climate (IPAC); the quality, coverage and co-ordination of environmental data; biodiversity loss; sustainable finance; and OECD engagement on environmental analysis with non-governmental organisations, civil society and the private sector, as well as youth, women, indigenous peoples, vulnerable and underserved communities.

One of the OECD’s oldest policy committees, the Environment Policy Committee, which convenes periodically at Ministerial level, has played a leading role for over half a century as a standard-setter in developing environmentally effective and economically efficient responses to pressing environmental, climate change and biodiversity crises.

See more on:

Issues and outcomes at the 2022 Environment Ministerial Meeting
The OECD’s work on the environment
The OECD’s Global Plastics Outlook
The OECD’s work on climate change
The OECD’s focus on the green recovery

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