Advance Technologies for Climate Change

Technological progress will be crucial in responses to climate change. Technology can provide the keys to reducing the cost of climate change mitigation. Policies and economics can propel technological change, and policy-makers and businesses both must play a major role in developing the necessary technologies to address climate change.

In many instances, legal and institutional frameworks impede the development, import/export, transfer, and use of technologies. Quotas and tariffs can affect the ability to import technologies. Similarly, subsidies may promote the use of technologies that may exacerbate problems associated with climate change. Cultural norms may also make it difficult to apply certain technologies.

ELI is improving legal and institutional frameworks governing the development, access, transfer, and use of technologies to meet the challenges of climate change. ELI seeks to advance the development, transfer, and use of technologies for climate change by examining barriers to their effective application, identifying innovative approaches, and understanding contextual factors that may affect whether and how countries may adapt approaches governing technologies to other legal, socio-economic, and political contexts.

ELI’s work on technologies for sustainable development builds on a history of work with Technology in the International Program.