Green Budgeting in OECD Countries

Climate and environmental considerations have become pressing priorities for governments in recent years. International commitments such as the Paris Agreement, the Aichi Biodiversity Targets under the Convention on Biodiversity (CBD) and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have spurred momentum across the OECD to prioritise green objectives to policy-making processes. As these efforts require systematic considerations across all parts of government, countries have identified the budget process as playing a key role in ensuring that priorities relating to the environment and climate change are part of the policy-making process. Thus, there has been an emergence of green budgeting practices across the OECD. Countries use green budgeting as a tool of budgetary policy making to provide policy makers with a clearer understanding of the environmental and climate impacts of budgeting choices, while bringing evidence together in a systematic and co-ordinated manner for more informed decision making to fulfil national and international commitments. This publication presents the findings from the first survey on green budgeting across OECD countries and provides information on the extent to which countries have the key elements of an effective approach to pursue environmental and climate priorities.