Technology transfer involves more than hardware supply; it can involve the complex processes of sharing knowledge and adapting technology to meeting local conditions. Domestic technical and managerial capacities, institutions and investments in technological learning all influence the effectiveness with which technology can be absorbed and adapted.
These considerations complicate the measurement problem.
Human resource and institutional development are crucial to facilitating technology utilization. Institutional development includes capacities for technology and business assessment, incubation, and technology testing and demonstration.Technology partnerships and networks can be means of sharing knowledge, enhancing technological capabilities, fostering innovation, improving market access and strengthening competitiveness.
Enhanced collaborative R&D is necessary between developing and developed countries to improve R&D strengths in specific areas of low-carbon technology. This can be seen as an opportunity for developing countries to acquire technological expertise in key emerging energy technologies as a basis for building competitive industries.
R&D collaboration among developing countries is also an option.There are state-of-the-art technologies ready for large-scale deployment, and technologies still under research and development.
In the case of mitigation, technologies can be further grouped by area of application: energy supply (the most prominent being wind, geothermal, integrated gasification combined cycle, concentrated solar energy, biomass/biogas and hydrogen systems); end- use (industry, transport and buildings) and infrastructure; carbon dioxide (CO2) capture and storage; and reducing other greenhouse gas emissions.
While a significant number of feasible technologies are available in each of these groups, they are not all commercially competitive without government subsidies or other support. Technologies requiring significant additional R&D and demonstration at scale include second-generation biofuels, hydrogen fuel cells for cars, grid-connected solar photovoltaics, and CO2 capture and storage.
A concerted effort is necessary to diversify the energy matrix in favor of renewable energy and low-carbon technologies. Technological progress can create new opportunities to harness the vast renewable energy potential.
Renewable energy can replace conventional fuels in power generation, hot water and space heating, transport fuels, and rural (off-grid) energy. In developing countries, the key challenge is to bring the cost of the resultant services to levels at which they would be affordable by low income households.
Considerable investment is necessary to increase the efficient conversion and use of energy in all sectors of the economy. Improved efficiency in energy demand and supply can make a major contribution to the reduction of GHG emissions. International cooperation with public and private partners creates synergies in the development of efficient and low-carbon technologies.
Technological progress can take place through: scientific innovation and invention, the adoption and adaptation of pre-existing but new-to-the-market technologies, and the diffusion of technologies. Enormous gaps remain, especially in the case of the least developed countries.
Technology development and transfer can be either accelerated or slowed depending on market conditions, fiscal and regulatory policies, availability of finance, access to information, the legal and institutional framework, human resource capacities, and the condition of infrastructure.
Each country needs to conduct its own assessment of the most important domestic barriers to clean technology development and transfer. In addition, there are also barriers relating to international trade and associated rules, for example, with respect to intellectual property rights.
Financial constraints are most often cited as a barrier to adoption of environmentally sound technologies in those developing countries which have conducted technology needs assessments.
Capital shortages and high capital costs are still commonplace in many developing countries. Underdeveloped financial sectors and inhospitable investment environments are key reasons.
Small domestic markets for low-carbon technologies are another oft-mentioned barrier to technology adoption. Limited information about the availability of technologies and technology suppliers was another frequently cited barrier to technology acquisition.
However, the biggest obstacle is that existing technologies are too expensive, making the resulting services unaffordable for the bulk of the populations.
The development of new, low-carbon technologies responds to both supply-push and demand-pull factors. Government financing for science and technology development is one key push factor. The policy-induced price of carbon is a key demand factor.
The roles of government and business differ depending on the stage of a technology’s development. Normally, government plays a vital role in basic research on the science underpinning low-carbon technologies. Firms are more active in research, development and demonstration (RD&D) and in the actual commercialization of new technologies.
There is a gap between the RD&D phase, when a technology is advanced enough that its application can be demonstrated, and the stage when the deployment of the technology or product takes place on a sufficiently large scale to make it viable on the market.
This gap is referred to as the “valley of death”. Significant hurdles can slow or block the move from one stage to the other. These hurdles include cost, infrastructure, slow capital turnover, market organization, information and financing.
Source: Sustainable Development UN.
Joshua Mosshart
https://www.linkedin.com/in/energydevelopmentpartners/
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