The latest OECD Environmental Outlook focusses on the triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution.

The OECD, or the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, is a global policy forum that brings together high-income democracies to address some of the world’s biggest challenges and promote liberty and prosperity. It develops policies to protect individual freedoms and improve the economic and social well-being of people worldwide. The organisation studies issues such as health, education, trade and taxation — and over the last two decades, climate change has become one of its most urgent areas of focus.

The OECD has recently published a major climate change report (link at the end of the article) that companies and governments must understand. It outlines essential policy tools and highlights the need to manage potential trade-offs — for example, ensuring that rapid renewable-energy deployment does not unintentionally damage natural habitats or create new waste-management challenges when technologies reach end-of-life.

According to the latest analysis, climate change is projected to overtake land-use change as the leading driver of biodiversity loss by 2050, intensifying pressures on terrestrial and marine ecosystems. In turn, biodiversity loss weakens ecosystem resilience to extreme weather and pollution, directly affecting air, water and soil quality. As land use shifts, we can also expect more flooding and wider challenges in wildlife management — as seen in recent bear attacks in Canada and Japan.

The new OECD Outlook emphasizes that policies addressing each environmental challenge are deeply interconnected. Climate mitigation policies that curb greenhouse gas emissions can also reduce co-emitted air pollutants. At the same time, expanding solar and wind power — essential for cutting emissions — can create new pressures on biodiversity if not carefully planned.

“Understanding the linkages between environmental challenges like climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution is essential for designing effective policy responses,” OECD Secretary-General Mathias Cormann said. “By co-ordinating their policy measures aimed at addressing these challenges, countries can more effectively advance their environmental objectives in line with their unique circumstances.”

The report examines national documents across ten countries — Argentina, Australia, Canada, China, France, India, Indonesia, Japan, Peru and Uganda — to illustrate how governments recognise these connections. While all countries acknowledge the two-way interlinkages between climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution in their Biennial Transparency Reports and National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans, gaps remain. What needs improvement? The report suggests that students, researchers and policymakers look closely at these findings to understand how to contribute to better environmental governance.

Overall, links between climate change and biodiversity are relatively well covered in national strategies, but the relationships involving pollution — including how climate and biodiversity pressures heighten pollution risks — are often missing. Policies designed to explicitly manage trade-offs, especially around pollution, remain limited.

To address these issues, the OECD identifies several practical levers for more integrated and effective policy action:

• Align financing and investment with interconnected climate, biodiversity and pollution objectives.

• Manage trade-offs in the clean-energy transition, including land pressures, material demand and end-of-life impacts.

• Transform resource use and advance circular-economy approaches to reduce waste, pollution and demand for primary materials.

• Improve the sustainability of food systems and land use to cut emissions, strengthen biodiversity and enhance resilience to climate and water stress.

::OECD climate change report

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Men may be from Mars, but women are the greener creatures, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Women in industrialized countries buy most of the eco-friendly household products.  Women also load up on organic foods. They recycle more and have greater interest in energy-efficient appliances, according to OECD surveys. Israel and Turkey are the only Middle East members of the OECD. The Institute for Women’s Policy Research Press indicates women are more willing than men to pay higher income taxes and gasoline prices when the funds are used to support environmental protection.

Eight years of Gallup polls suggest females have greater knowledge of the science behind climate change. They’re more concerned about environmental risks to health, particularly on a local level, and give stronger support to environmental crusaders.

Of course, these stats don’t prove women are hyper-conscious of ecological issues, it’s just that their actions lean to green.

Our choices are often made absent consideration of associated environmental impacts. Sleepwalking through decisions about our diet and transportation can result in significantly nasty impacts.

Not to wade too deep into the seas of stereotype (I say as I stereotype), but women worldwide have less effect on the atmosphere in part because they drive less, fly less, eat less, and fart less. The meat industry generates enormous greenhouse gas emissions, and men eat more meat.

These behavioral truisms widen the green gender gap in the Middle East, where economics, culture, and religion further differentiate how the sexes live their daily lives. And don’t forget there are more men than women on the planet.

Auto industry data show men buy trucks and cars and sport utility vehicles that consistently rank among the lowest-mileage vehicles on the road.

Have you ever seen a Prius commercial during a Super Bowl?

OK, so we know men have bigger feet. Carnegie Mellon University researchers say the average carbon footprint for a single American man is 32 tons annually, compared with 30 tons for his female counterpart, mainly due to driving habits. European studies draw similar conclusions.

These differences seep into politics. Environmental issues fuel a growing gender gap between Democrats and Republicans (GOP) in America: the Pew Research Center for People and the Press reports that women have consistently been moving away from the GOP for the past three decades.

This year’s presidential campaign is giving eco-savvy women added incentive to switch teams, especially when Republican presidential candidates trip over flashpoint issues. Newt Gingrich declared the Kyoto Protocol as “bad for the environment and bad for America” and Rick Santorum declared global warming a “hoax”.  Surely, environmental issues color politics in other democratic nations too.

In this X-Factor era, silly competition makes for idle amusement. “Us versus them” when it comes to environmental behavior is also a no-benefit distraction.

A hundred years ago, an  American scientist, ecologist, forester and environmentalist named Aldo Leopold proposed that mankind (that includes boys AND girls) learn to expand human relationships to include “relationships with the land”.  He urged us to adopt  “a land ethic that changes the role of Homo Sapiens from conqueror of the land to a plain member and citizen of it”.

Leopold’s philosophy was amplified by subsequent environmental pioneers like Rachel Carson and Bill McKibbon.  Green Prophet’s brought you artist Jason deCaires Taylor who incorporates this ideal in his underwater sculpture parks, teaching tourists to view beaches as living ecosystems, and not just wallpaper to some kick-back fun in the sun. There are legions of others teaching smarter ways of green living.

Ladies and gentlemen, take my advice.  Stop looking for differences and let’s all treat the world nice.

Image of green woman from Shutterstock

The post Are Women The Globe’s Green Giants? appeared first on Green Prophet.

The benefits of algae, GreenRoad’s new competitor, agricultural production forecasts and more headlines related to Israeli cleantech and the environment.

During the past week Google revealed that it’s been working on self-driving cars. Around the same time GreenRoad’s founder and Chief of Safety announced he is leaving the company. Is Google in his future? Solar water heaters are in the future of the US market, with Israel’s M.C.O Industries announcing that it is entering the US market. Meanwhile, the OECD is to review Israel’s environment policy which doesn’t seem too good. For these stories and more, see this week’s headlines below.

Solar
Agricultural production forecasts reach record heights

BrightSource, Alstom Eye Mediterranean “Ring” for Solar Thermal

Israeli solar water heater producer enters US market

Algae
The algae that want to conquer the world

Investment and Economy
OECD delegation to review Israel’s environment policy

8 Israeli Companies Make “Global Cleantech 100″ Guardian List

In Israel
An Unwelcome Colony? Ring-necked Parakeets Threaten Biodiversity in Jerusalem

Road Safety
First Transit Implements GreenRoad Technology

Missed last week’s headlines edition? Catch up on the latest solution to the water crisis, delegation coming to Israel, Israel-Canada collaboration and more.

The post Israel Cleantech Intelligence: Google Power and 7 More Headlines appeared first on Green Prophet.

When Israel was invited to join the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) earlier this year, dissident voices condemned the move, citing its dubious human rights record.

Israel’s contribution to science and technology sealed its inclusion in this elite group of developed countries nonetheless, though because membership requires higher operating standards in all sectors of society, Israel’s polluters have already been taken to task.

This week, 26 out of 33 OECD members, as well as Estonia, India, and Romania, are participating in a three day tourism conference in Jerusalem focused on elevating the industry to a more environmentally conscionable and sustainable level. While in general Israel’s record is sound, with numerous eco-options available to foreigners, the state of the Dead Sea and its sinking hotels remains the country’s biggest blight.The Jerusalem Post reports on the political dimension of this conference. Countries that have not sent representatives to participate include Belgium, Sweden, Ireland, New Zealand, the UK, Iceland, and Turkey.

“It’s going to be a very productive and useful conference for tourism professionals,” an OECD official told the paper on Tuesday night. “It’s about tourism, and that’s what we’re going to be talking about,” the official said.

Tourism Minister Stas Meseznikov bemoans the media’s role in politicizing an event that is focused on tourism.

“It is my regret that there were attempts by different forces to mix up this professional conference with political considerations that are not related, especially given that such a conference can contribute greatly to anyone promoting tourism both internationally and individually,” the paper quotes a statement made by Meseznikov on Tuesday.

Instead, OECD membership is designed to boost Israel’s image abroad and to encourage foreign investment.

Among other archaeological, historical, and religious draws, the Dead Sea attracts a throng of tourists each year, in spite of the compromising impact the minerals industry has had on its ecological integrity.

“One of the goals of the round-table discussion about making hotels more green is to be able to have leading hoteliers announce, “Being a guest in my hotel is being respectful of the Earth where we are all guests,” according to the paper.

However, authorities are presently considering a plan to knock down and relocate certain hotels astride the Dead Sea in Ein Boker that are at risk of flooding by rising water levels caused by a salt imbalance as a result of undue minerals extraction.

Hotel owners would prefer a less drastic alternative and blame Dead Sea Works for jeopardizing the tourism industry, but until this situation is resolved, Israeli hoteliers will have a hard time announcing how respectful they are of the earth.

:: Jerusalem Post

More eco-tourism news from Israel:

Rom Farm Brings Organic Goat Cheese to a Table Near You, With Some Help from the Handicapped

Enjoy EcoBike’s Eco-Friendly Cycling Tours of Israel with a Cold Beer (Or Clean Conscience)

Have a Multi-Sensual Organic Experience at Kibbutz Sde Eliyahu’s Bio-Tours

The post Will OECD Conf. Compel Israel To Solve Dead Sea Problem? appeared first on Green Prophet.

Frequently people argue that it’s pointless to curb one’s personal habits when the big industries are most at fault for driving up greenhouse gas emissions. What difference does it make if one family recycles their cans, for example, or their meat consumption, when the agricultural, energy, manufacturing, and transportation industries pollute at rates that are exponentially higher? In Israel, that argument will be increasingly difficult to maintain, as the cabinet recently ratified the country’s membership in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

The standard

OECD’s aim is to impose legal industry standards for developed economies. Of the 220 such standards, 70 apply to the environment.

The ratification should lead to better disclosure of each plant’s pollution output and a permitting system to control and prevent pollution; tracking the presence of dangerous chemicals will also be a priority.

However, implementing these new, rigorous pollution standards will require an adjustment period that will be easier for large companies to incorporate than it will for small to medium sized companies.

A little help from the government

For this reason, the Israel Manufacturer’s Association is asking the government for NIS 200 million to ease the smaller organizations’ transition, though according to Haaretz writer Ora Coren, the treasury has received no such request.

However, the Environmental Protection Ministry’s Director General Yossi Inbar told Haaretz that it is prepared to spend billions of shekels to improve industry environmental standards.

“It hasn’t come voluntarily, but rather because they have no choice,” he told Haaretz.

Slow to implement

Amit Bracha, the Director of the Israel Union for Environmental Defense, claims that implementation of the OECD rules, which is expected to last until 2017, could occur more quickly, and that despite their claims otherwise, even large companies have not fully grasped environmental concerns.

Israel Chemicals, which has received criticism for its role in compromising the ecological health of the Dead Sea, has since become the poster child for environmental awareness among industries, according to Coren.

Judging footprints

The company’s executive Vice President Asher Grinbaum claims to understand the interconnectedness of environmental and economic health, and acknowledges that in the same way that consumers judge their food by its calorie and fat content, so too will they judge industry’s carbon footprint.

The OECD rules will ensure that polluters absorb the costs of pollution, so that consumers will be encouraged to purchase products that are cheaper and cleaner. Also, companies that have poor environmental standards will no longer receive incentives or subsidies.

“The OECD led the Environmental Protection Ministry to discontinue its policy of letting factories receive separate permits for air and ground pollution and to develop an integrated pollution registry. New air pollution legislation will come into effect in Israel next year as a result,” writes Coren.

While a certain step in the right direction, the hard days of implementation still lie ahead.

:: image via Taras Kalapun and story via Haaretz

More Green News From Israel:
Will Israel’s Undersea Gas Pipeline Idea Increase the Mediterranean’s Already Polluted State?
One State. One Environment
Intel Israel Is LEED’s Golden Child

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