28 May 2010: The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) held its Ministerial Council Meeting from 27-28 May 2010, at OECD headquarters in Paris, France, which focused on, inter alia, strategies to enable and enhance innovation, and green growth.
Discussions on innovation, based on the new report titled “The OECD Innovation Strategy: Getting a Head Start on Tomorrow,” stressed that it is key to long-term growth and to effectively address global challenges such as climate change. In their conclusions, the ministers say that via strategic innovation policies, they will: empower people to innovate through education and training; induce innovation through regulatory frameworks and taxes; foster entrepreneurship; and enhance public research systems and knowledge network development.
In the discussions on green growth, accompanied by the release of the Interim Report of the Green Growth Strategy, ministers recognized that green growth is gaining support across countries as a paradigm to bring about economic growth and development while responding to environmental challenges, such as climate change, biodiversity loss and unsustainable use of natural resources.
In their conclusions, they stress the importance of staying within the boundaries of international trade obligations. They also underline the need to reform policies that may undermine green growth efforts, such as environmentally harmful subsidies, and welcome the OECD’s work on investigating phasing out fossil fuel subsidies in the medium term. Ministers further reaffirmed their commitment to reach a positive outcome at the 16th session of the Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC (COP 16) in Cancun, Mexico, at the end of the year. [Meeting Website] [Ministerial Conclusions] [Climate Change Policy & Practice Story on the Interim Report of the Green Growth Strategy]