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Facing the Climate Challenge of the 21st Century

This blog is hosted by the Climate Change Team of the Environment Department of the World Bank. It is a forum to discuss challenges and solutions, stories, action on the ground, and to hear the voices of those most impacted by development and climate change.

Muthukumara Mani's blog

Climate Change Technology Investment Index: A new dashboard for low carbon growth path

Submitted by Muthukumara Mani on Tue, 06/22/2010 - 18:00

 In my previous blog, I had highlighted a general lack of urgency in focusing on technology development, diffusion and transfer to deal with climate change. 

Many of the public policies needed to achieve low carbon growth in countries over the medium term are already in place, including feed-in tariff regimes, mandatory renewable energy targets and tax incentives. But more such policies may be necessary or existing policy distortions removed if one were to envision massive scale-up in such investments. It becomes both important and interesting to track progress globally as the policies and strategies shift and evolve toward promoting sustainable and low carbon growth paths.
 
 

Technology Transfer in the Climate Context: Who is responsible?

Submitted by Muthukumara Mani on Mon, 06/29/2009 - 00:00
Technology transfer in the climate context: Who is responsible?
   Photo © caveman 92223 at Flickr under a 
   Creative Commons license.

Technology issues have always been at the forefront of the global climate change debate.  It is even suggested that just like the food crises of 1960 triggered the need for a “green” revolution, we need nothing short of a technology revolution to deal with climate change.  However, if we look over the horizon, I think there isn’t enough of a sense of urgency being exhibited when it comes to technology, either internationally or at the country level. 

Trade and Climate Change: Challenges and opportunities for developing countries

Submitted by Muthukumara Mani on Tue, 04/28/2009 - 14:55

Interaction between trade and climate change regimes has received much attention lately. While I can think of a number of “climate-positive” reasons for exploring synergies between the two regimes and for aligning policies that could stimulate production, trade, and investment in cleaner technology options, much of focus instead has been on using trade measures as weapons in the global climate negotiations.  This stems mainly from competitiveness concerns in countries that are now racing to reduce GHG emissions to meet Kyoto 2012 targets and beyond and in the US primarily to allay domestic fears of a tightening climate regime. These concerns have led to proposals for tariff or border tax adjustments to offset any adverse impact of capping CO2 emissions. This also has roots in the fear of leakage of carbon-intensive industries such as steel and chemicals to non-implementing countries.