Technology and Innovation Report 2023
Recently United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) has released “Technology and Innovation Report, 2023”.
This report focuses on the concept of green innovation. Green innovation involves creating or providing new or improved quality goods and services that have a lower carbon footprint and open up new opportunities.
Key Findings of report-
- Deep divide between North and South world: European Union countries spend up to 3 percent of their GDP on research and development. In contrast, some developing countries are able to spend only 1 percent.
- Most countries have increased their climate change related ‘green Official Development Assistance (ODA)’ since the 2015 Paris Agreement.
- UN support for technology transfer: The Global Environment Facility (GEF), under the United Nations system, is the largest source of public sector funding for the transfer of environmental excellence technologies (ESTs).
- The United Nations Climate Technology Center and Network (CTCN) of the UNFCCC provides technical assistance to developing countries.
Recommendations to promote international collaboration for green innovation:
- Trade must be made compatible with the Paris Agreement on Climate Change.
- Partnership oriented approach should be adopted for the development of green technology.
- Research for green innovations should be internationalized by taking it beyond national boundaries. Also, open innovation approach should be adopted.
- There is a need to support South-South Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) cooperation for green innovation.
Four key characteristics of green innovation:
- Higher Level Experimentation – Nations must be innovators. It is not enough to move forward by following.
- Green innovation should have social value and should also have provisions for climate related public goods.
- Green innovation should involve direct government intervention.
- Green innovation should be influenced by the global agenda, rules and mechanisms (such as the Paris Agreement) related to climate change.
Source – Down to Earth
