What role for climate negotiations on technology transfer?

Abstract

Little progress has been made in climate negotiations on technology since 1992. Yet the diffusion of climate change mitigation technologies to developing countries (non-Annex I) has increased dramatically over the last twenty years. The shift has mostly concerned emerging economies, which are now reasonably well connected to international technology flows. This is good news, as the bulk of emissions increases are expected to take place in these countries in the near future. In contrast, the least developed countries still appear to be excluded from international technology flows, mostly because of their negligible participation in the recent economic globalization. This article focuses on the policy implications of the contribution of climate negotiations to international technology diffusion.

Policy relevance

The discrepancy between the small amount of progress made in climate negotiations on technology since 1992 and the steady increase in the international diffusion of climate mitigation technologies leads to the perhaps controversial view that the diffusion of climate mitigation technologies does not need strong international coordination over technology issues under the UNFCCC. However, climate negotiations can play a key role in stimulating the demand for low-carbon technologies by setting ambitious emission reductions targets and policies.

Keywords:

• climate mitigation technologies
• climate negotiations
• economic globalization
• innovation policy
• intellectual property rights
• international technology transfer
• trade

Acknowledgments

The article is based on a report prepared for France Stratégie. The authors thank Dominique Auverlot, Blandine Barreau, Damien Dussaux, Stéphane Hallegatte, Gaëlle Hossie, Nick Johnstone, Yann Ménière, Giuseppe Nicoletti, Annabelle Mourougane and Ambuj Sagar for their helpful comments and contributions. Matthieu Glachant also gratefully acknowledges the financial support of the World Bank. The usual disclaimer applies. Antoine Dechezleprêtre acknowledges the financial support from the UK Economic and Social Research Council through the Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy as well as from the Grantham Foundation for the Protection of the Environment.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 An exception is Pueyo and Linares (2012), who collected data on trade of equipment in hydro, wind and solar power and installed capacity in renewable electricity generation weighted by claims of technology transfer observed in CDM projects. The scope is however more limited than our study, which covers a wide range of climate change mitigation technologies.

2 The fact that an inventor located in one country applies for patent protection in another country is an indication that the inventor expects to transfer the technology, as patenting confers the exclusive right to commercially exploit the technology in that country.

3 A briefing note on the history of negotiations on technology has been published by the TEC (2011).

4 Dechezleprêtre et al. (2011) even show that around 60% of climate change mitigation inventions patented between 2000 and 2005 have been developed in just three countries: Germany, Japan and the US.

5 The TTF has been strongly influenced by a special report on technology transfer published in 2000 by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2000).

6 See http://unfccc.int/ttclear/pages/tec_home.html (accessed 20 June 2015).

7 They are, however, proposed by countries and the committee should include an equal share of members from Annex I countries and non-Annex I countries.

8 Keller (2004) offers a comprehensive survey of the economic literature on technology diffusion.

9 Licensing is a third channel of technology diffusion. Unfortunately, data on international flows of royalty payments are lacking. However, the evidence shows that technology transfers via licensing are of a much smaller magnitude than via trade and FDI.

10 More details on the data used in the present article are provided in Glachant et al. (2013).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by France Stratégie (contract # 007-2012).