Finding the social, economic and technological barriers and opportunities in the developing countries for designing the technology transfer and innovation regime in climate change

Abstract

This paper addresses the social, economic and technological barriers and opportunities in the developing countries for designing the technology transfer and innovation regime in climate change. The author identifies the barriers and opportunities through case studies in India, Thailand and China. The author also overviews previous research on the subject and suggests social, economic and technological issues that needs to be incorporated in designing the technology transfer and innovation regime. Technology transfer and innovation is a central issue in climate change negotiations. The parties agreed to establish the “Technology mechanism” in the Copenhagen Accord and the Expert Group on Technology Transfer (EGTT) is working to produce a recommendation on the institutional design. However, no concrete proposals have been put forward yet partly due to the lack of understanding of the issue and partly due to the lack of research demonstrating the unique barriers and opportunities in the developing countries. The paper highlights several issues that the author came to recognize through case studies. One issue relates to the fact that there are different social expectations for technology transfer and innovation. Some countries are willing to invite “technology transfer” and successfully adopt technologies in operation, while some countries tend to focus on “technology innovation”. One needs to incorporate the different social expectations and needs to design multilateral projects and programs to diffuse or develop technologies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Another issue to discuss is the different concepts and levels of technology transfer. In some cases, technology transfers are not successful in the operational phase of the technologies due to the social, economic and technologies barriers. The author also emphasizes the opportunity side in the paper that there are also social, economic and technological conditions to bring leapfrogging technologies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the developing countries.