Breaking through on Technology, research by The Climate Institute and eight other leading international think tanks in the Global Climate Network, recommends world leaders help to unleash a global clean industrial revolution.
Climate Institute CEO John Connor says that technology transfer is a key sticking point in global climate negotiations.
He explains “By working with other countries on technology and backing it up with a strategy to unlock private and public sector financing, Australia can build trust between countries that will be crucial to achieving an ambitious agreement in Copenhagen.
“Not only will this bring about sustainable jobs and profits in clean industries to help address human needs and reduce poverty, it will reduce greenhouse gas pollution and help break the current deadlock in UN climate talks.”
The Climate Institute prepared the Australian Perspectives component of the Breaking through on Technology report, which looked at the Australian perspective on the opportunities and barriers to clean technology development, deployment and transfer, based on interviews with individuals from government, the private sector, academia, industry groups and other stakeholders.
It concluded that, along with the appropriate renewable energy target and emissions trading scheme policies, a clear and coherent national strategy for clean technology research, development and deployment remains a key policy gap to be filled by the Federal Government.
Over 100 experts from government, private sector firms and academic institutes across eight countries were interviewed for the global report to gather their views on the barriers to development and transfer of low carbon technology.
One of the report’s key findings was that most low-carbon technologies require high upfront investment and may be more costly to deploy than carbon intensive alternatives, and therefore government funding initiatives are necessary.
“Although in the longer term the private sector will be the major source of low carbon finance, government money is needed early on to make new technologies cheaper and less risky,” says the report.
