Potentially environmentally harmful subsidies far exceed finance for biodiversity conservation, and progress toward reducing them has been limited. The objective is to develop guidance for identifying and assessing subsidies harmful to biodiversity by drawing on existing national assessments. These vary in scope, sector coverage, and methodology. A proposed framework includes scoping subsidies, assessing impacts on biodiversity, and prioritizing reforms. Next steps are to expand the comparative analysis of assessments and update guidance for national identification of harmful biodiversity subsidies.

1. Katia Karousakis
Biodiversity Team Leader, OECD Environment Directorate
Green Budgeting Expert Meeting
29 April 2019, Paris
DEVELOPING GUIDANCE TO IDENTIFY
AND ASSESS HARMFUL SUBSIDIES TO
BIODIVERSITY

2. • Potentially environmentally/biodiversity harmful
subsidies far exceed the finance mobilised to
conserve and sustainably use biodiversity
• Aichi Target 3 under the UN Convention on
Biological Diversity (CBD) calls for action
• But little progress to date…
2
International Context
Source: SCBD (2014), Global Biodiversity Outlook 4
Progress towards Aichi Target 3

3. • Objective:
– Drawing on insights from the scope and methodologies used in
existing national level assessments - and the broader literature,
the objective is to develop guidance to identify and assess
subsidies harmful to biodiversity
• Relevant for other countries wishing to conduct similar national level
assessments
• WPBWE scoping paper currently covers:
1. International context
2. Preliminary literature review on subsidies harmful to
biodiversity
3. Comparative analysis of national assessments
4. Proposed next steps
3
Objective of OECD 2019-2020 WPBWE
Project

4. • France
• Germany
• Italy
• Netherlands
• Nordic Council
• Switzerland
• Others pending
4
A few national level assessments do exist
These vary in terms of:
scope (BHS/EHS)
coverage of sectors
methodology

5. 5
Comparison of existing national
assessments
Country Year of study Scope
France 2012 Biodiversity
Germany 2014/2017 Environment
Italy 2017 Environment
Kyrgyz Republic On-going Biodiversity
Netherlands 2011 Environment
Nordic Council 2014 Environment
Switzerland 2013 Environment

6. 1. Scoping and screening
a. Identification of subsidies
b. Identification of potentially EHS/BHS
2. Assessing
a. Quantification of potentially EHS/BHS
b. Quantification of likely biodiversity damage
from EHS/BHS
3. Reforming
a. Prioritising reforms
b. Implementing reform
6
Framework for national assessments

7. 7
Scope of existing national assessments

8. • Include any other national-level assessments
(section 3);
• Examine how the methods used in the
national level assessments compare to the
OECD toolkits and top-down approaches to
identify environmentally harmful subsidies;
• Develop updated guidance/checklists to
identify and assess subsidies harmful to
biodiversity at national level.
8
Next steps