OECD, France and Mexico launch “Paris Collaborative on Green Budgeting” at One Planet Summit

2017-12-13

OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurría, on December 12, announcedy at the One Planet Summit in Paris the launch of the “Paris Collaborative on Green Budgeting”, a strategic initiative to assess and drive the alignment of national budgetary processes with the Paris Agreement and other environmental goals. The announcement was endorsed by Environment Ministers Nicolas Hulot of France and Rafael Pacchiano of Mexico, during a panel discussion on the role of public policies in accelerating the ecological and inclusive transition.

The Paris Collaborative is the first cross-country and cross-sectoral initiative designed to support governments to “green” their fiscal policy and embed climate and other environmental commitments, such as the Aichi biodiversity targets, agreed in 2010, within national budgeting and policy frameworks.

This is a crucial step in achieving a central aim of the Paris Agreement – bringing national policy frameworks and financial flows into alignment with a pathway towards low greenhouse gas emissions and climate-resilient development, as highlighted in the recent OECD report Investing in Climate, Investing in Growth.

The Paris Collaborative will be convened by the OECD, working in close partnership with a range of governments around the world to develop agreed definitions, tools, methodologies and guidelines that will allow countries and citizens to track progress on green budgeting both nationally and internationally.

“Our success meeting the objectives of the Paris Agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals more broadly will require bold, collective and decisive action to make the ‘one planet’ we have a greener, cleaner and more sustainable place” Mr. Gurría said. “The Paris Collaborative on Green Budgeting goes precisely in this direction by contributing to a step-change in how governments think and act in their budgetary process in order to address this defining challenge of our age.”

Minister Hulot added: “There is no time to lose to take action toward carbon neutrality. Public decision makers urgently need a compass to make sure that budgetary, fiscal and regulatory choices are made within a consistent package, fully aligned with the Paris Agreement.” He warmly welcomed the initiative by OECD to fill this policy tool gap and invites other countries to join this collaborative effort to build shared and robust green budgeting methodologies.

Source: Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development