The OECD gathered Environment Ministers for a meeting under the theme “Ensuring a Resilient and Healthy Environment for All” and featured two central focuses – climate and plastics.

Ministers discussed the climate challenge and the next steps after COP26, with critical themes including climate finance, mitigation and adaptation, pricing carbon and bridging the gap between longer-term goals and near-term commitments.

The release of the OECD’s first-of-its-kind Global Plastics Outlook: Economic Drivers, Environmental Impacts and Policy Options provided a unique input for Ministers to discuss plastics including the urgent need to reduce the amount of waste and toxic substances entering the environment, while making much more efficient use of scarce resources. The meeting provided time for Ministers to meet in smaller break-out sessions on a range of key environmental topics.

Discover the Ministerial outcomes

The Declaration on a Resilient and Healthy Environment for All was adopted on 31 March 2022 on the occasion of the Ministerial Meeting of the OECD Environment Policy Committee (EPOC) held in Paris. At that Meeting, Ministers discussed how to intensify their work on climate and the environment, including curbing biodiversity loss, addressing plastic pollution, aligning finance with environmental objectives, and accelerating climate change action with a view to keeping the 1.5°C temperature rise limit within reach.

Environment Ministers from OECD’s 38 member countries, the EU, invited partner countries (Argentina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Croatia, Egypt, Peru, Romania, South Africa), and selected intergovernmental organisations and stakeholders gathered in Paris on 30-31 March 2022 to discuss the environmental challenges facing the world and how to promote effective and efficient policy responses. The meeting under the theme Ensuring a Resilient and Healthy Environment for All took place under the guidance of the Co-Chairs, Minister Carole Dieschbourg (Luxembourg) and Administrator Michael S. Regan (United States of America) and the Vice-Chairs, Minister Sussan Ley (Australia), Minister Carlos Eduardo Correa (Colombia), Minister Tamar Zandberg (Israel), and Minister Rebecca Pow (UK). 

Ministers and high-level representatives from the OECD’s 38 member countries and the European Union, as well as Bulgaria, Croatia, Peru and Romania, committed in a formal OECD Declaration today to intensify their work on climate and the environment, including doing more to curb biodiversity loss, address plastic pollution, align finance with environmental objectives and accelerate climate change action with a view to keeping the 1.5°C temperature rise limit within reach.

In the Declaration on a Resilient and Healthy Environment for All, adopted at the Environment Ministerial meeting on 30-31 March 2022, Ministers committed to: “Strive to announce at the 2022 OECD Council at the Ministerial Level (MCM) national-level visions, actions, or plans, that could include:

• strengthening domestic policies and fostering international cooperation, working towards the prevention, reduction and elimination of all plastic pollution in the environment;
• encouraging the sustainable design of plastic products that are reusable, repairable, recyclable or, where viable alternatives do not exist, recoverable and, where feasible, do not contain substances that are harmful to human health and the environment;
• promoting sustainable production and consumption, and circularity of plastics, stimulating research, technological and social innovation in materials science, finance, business models and behavioural change among citizens;
• enhancing financing and circularity including, as appropriate, by strengthening extended producer responsibility;
• enhancing plastic waste prevention, environmentally sound waste management and clean-up activities.”

To mark at the same time the 2022 Environment Ministerial Meeting and over fifty years of the OECD Environment Policy Committee (EPOC), the OECD featured artwork from environmental artists in collaboration with Colombia, France, Germany, Greece and the Slovak Republic at the OECD Headquarters in Paris.

In addition, a tree planting activity, offered by the Delegation of Germany to the OECD and the German Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Nuclear Safety and Consumer Protection took place to highlight German artists' tree planting project designed to enable and encourage planting of trees in different places and cities around the world.

This brochure highlights the tree planting project, and summarises the artists' work and biographies.