Providing investors with recourse against governments is valuable.

I feel confident that leaders will rise to this challenge with a stronger commitment to tackle climate change and seize the economic opportunities that a post-carbon world has to offer.

Ending our reliance on fossil fuels was never going to be easy.

Our leaders must get to grips with the huge risk that carbon dioxide emissions pose to the economy and the environment. As we know, carbon dioxide is a long-lived gas. It hangs around.

You do need more revenues, and you do need to cut expenses. But you also don't want to go in a direction whereby increasing taxes creates a reticence to create new jobs. You don't want to increase taxes on work. You don't want to increase taxes on investment and the creation of wealth.

'Tax' is a bad word for politicians.

Some refugees will find it relatively easy to find jobs. A university-educated Syrian civil engineer arriving in Munich will need to learn some German, but once this is done, he or she is unlikely to have to wait too long before employers come knocking.

In a globally interdependent world, a better financial and investment system cannot be achieved on a country-by-country basis. There may be no one-size-fits-all model for economic development, but without global standards and complementary regulations, the long-term outlook for the world economy will remain bleak.

Creating a global platform for collaboration in education research and innovation has been the PISA initiative's aspiration from its conception in the late 1990s.

We need to focus much more on the bottom 40 per cent. They are losing ground, and the fact that they are losing ground blocks social mobility and brings down economic growth.

In a country like Mexico, you can't forget about poverty - about how half of the population lives in poverty, and how half of that half live in extreme poverty.

Governments can and do expropriate investors or discriminate against them. Domestic judicial and administrative systems provide investors with one option for protecting themselves.

When a large financial institution is allowed to fail, you put in jeopardy hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people.

Governments must address inconsistencies in their energy strategies, consider the links with broader economic policies, and stop sending mixed signals to consumers, producers, and investors. In particular, they must assess whether the right regulatory arrangements are in place to allow clean-energy investments to compete on a risk-return basis.

When, as an individual, you are not paying taxes, it is evasion. As a corporate, it is legal shrewdness or tax engineering.

Unlike other essential goods, like clothing, shelter, or food, we take cheap or even free water for granted. It often takes a crisis, such as a major drought or flood, to spur investment and policy reforms in improving water security.

Principles of fair and equitable treatment included in many treaties are uncontroversial as general principles of good public governance.

Most businesses do not take governments seriously when it comes to climate, primarily because many governments have inconsistent and incoherent policies and then often keep changing them, sometimes retroactively. This makes businesses reluctant to invest in greener technologies.

Social cohesion and inclusive growth are additional crucial perspectives to incorporate into public policies, targeting a renewed social contract that reduces inequalities and benefits the whole of society.

Governments need to be seriously sceptical about whether new coal provides a good deal for their citizens.

There probably could be some mileage in running a comparative study about how best to finance electoral campaigns around the world.

The G7 doesn't have a permanent secretariat. The OECD can help the G8 and set the agenda for them. The secretary general of the OECD should be going to them proactively and discussing issues and priorities.

In order to encourage private investors to pursue long-term, responsible projects, governments need to promote consistent policies and frameworks.

The OECD should promote everything that's consistent with its mandate, which is to make the world economy work better.