Introduction
As stipulated in Article 10, paragraph 5, of the Paris Agreement, accelerating, encouraging and enabling innovation is critical for an effective, long-term global response to climate change and promoting economic growth and sustainable development.
Fostering innovation could be done through new collaborative approaches to climate technology research, development and demonstration (RD&D). RD&D refers to the first steps of the technology development cycle, when new technologies are conceptualized, prototypes built and tested in lab and field conditions. These new technologies support both climate change mitigation and adaptation actions.
Under the Paris Agreement Paris Agreement's Technology Framework, the Technology Mechanism and its two bodies - the Technology Executive Committee (TEC) and the Climate Technology Center and Network - were mandated to facilitate the sharing of information on international technology RD&D partnerships and initiatives.
Mandated work on technology RD&D
The TEC – the policy body of the Technology Mechanism – has been working on technology innovation and RD&D since 2013; some of the results of the work so far can be viewed here. The TEC is now developing a compilation of good practices and lessons learned on countries' RD&D, which is expected to be completed by the end of 2020 and launched to the public in early 2021. A first draft of the compilation will be made publicly available and discussed by the twenty-first meeting of the TEC (17-20 November 2020).
The compilation of good practices and lessons learned
The compilation will analyse selected case studies that provide a balanced representation of RD&D initiatives in terms of:
- Mitigation and adaptation
- Size
- Geographical scope
- Type of collaboration
- Sectoral focus.
It will look at bilateral and multilateral projects and programmes in Asia and the Pacific, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, Europe and North America. Energy supply, agriculture and water management are among the key sectors covered by the selected case studies.
A number of issues will be analysed in the compilation, including: collaborative designs, policy and financial drivers, inclusion of local communities and women, handling and arrangement of intellectual property rights, and approaches to communication and outreach. The alignment with countries' needs as reported in the Nationally Determined Contributions, National Adaptation Plans and Technology Needs Assessments will also be described.
The final outcome is to extract good practices and lessons learned to increase effective participation of developing countries in collaborative RD&D initiatives on climate technologies.
Plans for 2021
A virtual meeting is being planned for early 2021 to present the product to the public. The event will also be an occasion for an exchange of expert views, with a discussion on options to initiate joint climate technology RD&D activities in developing countries.
Get involved
If you are actively involved in international collaborative RD&D for climate technologies, you are in a unique position to contribute to the expert discussion of the launching event. Please get in touch with us via: tec@unfccc.int
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