External sources of clean technology: evidence from the clean development mechanism

New technology is fundamental to sustainable development. However, inventors from industrialized countries often refuse technology transfer because they worry about reverse-engineering. When can clean technology transfer succeed? We develop a formal model of the political economy of North–South technology transfer. According to the model, technology transfer is possible if (1) the technology in focus has limited global commercial potential or (2) the host developing country does not have the capacity to absorb new technologies for commercial use. If both conditions fail, inventors from industrialized countries worry about the adverse competitiveness effects of reverse-engineering, so technology transfer fails. Data analysis of technology transfer in 4,894 projects implemented under the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism during the 2004–2010 period provides evidence in support of the model

Carbon Pricing in Climate Policy: Seven Reasons, Complementary Instruments, and Political Economy Considerations

Carbon pricing is a recurrent theme in debates on climate policy. Discarded at the 2009 COP in Copenhagen, it remained part of deliberations for a climate agreement in subsequent years. As there is still much misunderstanding about the many reasons to implement a global carbon price, ideological resistance against it prospers. Here, we present the main arguments for carbon pricing, to stimulate a fair and well-informed discussion about it. These include considerations that have received little attention so far. We stress that a main reason to use carbon pricing is environmental effectiveness at a relatively low cost, which in turn contributes to enhance social and political acceptability of climate policy. This includes the property that corrected prices stimulate rapid environmental innovations. These arguments are underappreciated in the public debate, where pricing is frequently downplayed and the erroneous view that innovation policies are sufficient is widespread. Carbon pricing and technology policies are, though, largely complementary and thus are both needed for effective climate policy. We also comment on the complementarity of other instruments to carbon pricing. We further discuss distributional consequences of carbon pricing and present suggestions on how to address these. Other political economy issues that receive attention are lobbying, co-benefits, international policy coordination, motivational crowding in/out, and long-term commitment. The overview ends with reflections on implementing a global carbon price, whether through a carbon tax or emissions trading. The discussion goes beyond traditional arguments from environmental economics by including relevant insights from energy research and innovation studies as well

International patent families: from application strategies to statistical indicators

This paper provides an in-depth analysis of the characteristics of international patent families, including their domestic component. We exploit a relatively under-studied feature of patent families, namely the number of patents covering the same invention within a given jurisdiction. Using this information, we highlight common patterns in the structure of international patent families, which reflect both the patenting strategies of innovators and the peculiarities of the different patent systems. While the literature has extensively used family size, i.e. the number of countries in which a given invention is protected, as a measure of patent value, our results suggest that the number of patent filings in the priority country within a patent family as well as the timespan between the first and last fillings within a family are other insightful indicators of the value of patented innovations

Reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from national climate legislation

The international response to climate change has been inadequate, but not zero. There are 1,800 climate change laws worldwide. We use panel data on legislative activity in 133 countries over the period 1999–2016 to identify statistically the short-term and long-term impact of climate legislation. Each new law reduces annual carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions per unit of gross domestic product by 0.78% nationally in the short term (during the first three years) and by 1.79% in the long term (beyond three years). The results are driven by parliamentary acts and by countries with a strong rule of law. In 2016, current climate laws were associated with an annual reduction in global CO2 emissions of 5.9 GtCO2, more than the US CO2 output that year. Cumulative CO2 emissions savings from 1999 to 2016 amount to 38 GtCO2, or one year’s worth of global CO2 output. The impact on other greenhouse gases is much lower

Exploring the role of instrument design and instrument interaction for eco-innovation: a survey-based analysis of renewable energy innovation in Germany

Empirical research on eco-innovation has produced a substantive body of literature on the relevance of regulation for stimulating such innovation. Much of this work on the role of policy for eco-innovation relies on econometric analyses of company survey data. In this regard, the eco-innovation module introduced in 2008/9 in the Community Innova-tion Survey serves as an important data source that has helped improve our under-standing of the role of environmental and innovation policy for eco-innovation in the Eu-ropean Union (EU). However, so far, this data source has provided only limited oppor-tunities to generate insights into the role of instrument design and instrument interaction for eco-innovation. In this chapter, we present a first attempt to measure such aspects in a company innovation survey based on the example of renewable energy innovation in Germany. In particular, we explore to what extent the design of the German Renewa-ble Energy Sources Act (and the interaction of its feed-in tariffs with the EU emissions trading system) correlates with innovation in renewable power generation technologies. We find instrument design features but not instrument type to be related to eco-innovation. In addition, our exploratory study provides evidence for an interaction effect between climate policy and renewables support policy. Based on these findings, we discuss implications for future research on the role of policy in eco-innovation

Connecting the sustainable development goals by their energy inter-linkages

The United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) provide guide-posts to society as it attempts to respond to an array of pressing challenges. One of these challenges is energy; thus, the SDGs have become paramount for energy policy-making. Yet, while governments throughout the world have already declared the SDGs to be 'integrated and indivisible', there are still knowledge gaps surrounding how the interactions between the energy SDG targets and those of the non-energy-focused SDGs might play out in different contexts. In this review, we report on a large-scale assessment of the relevant energy literature, which we conducted to better our understanding of key energy-related interactions between SDGs, as well as their context-dependencies (relating to time, geography, governance, technology, and directionality). By (i) evaluating the nature and strength of the interactions identified, (ii) indicating the robustness of the evidence base, the agreement of that evidence, and our confidence in it, and (iii) highlighting critical areas where better understanding is needed or context dependencies should be considered, our review points to potential ways forward for both the policy making and scientific communities. First, we find that positive interactions between the SDGs outweigh the negative ones, both in number and magnitude. Second, of relevance for the scientific community, in order to fill knowledge gaps in critical areas, there is an urgent need for interdisciplinary research geared toward developing new data, scientific tools, and fresh perspectives. Third, of relevance for policy-making, wider efforts to promote policy coherence and integrated assessments are required to address potential policy spillovers across sectors, sustainability domains, and geographic and temporal boundaries. The task of conducting comprehensive science-to-policy assessments covering all SDGs, such as for the UN's Global Sustainable Development Report, remains manageable pending the availability of systematic reviews focusing on a limited number of SDG dimensions in each case