by Roman Vakulchuk

One of the most pressing issues today is to identify the problems related to technology adaptation. Many experts argue that in fact invention of environmental technologies is really what matters most. However, in fact, deployment and adaptation of new environmental technologies is the key issue at the moment if we speak of technologies as a solution to climate change. As of today the pace of technological invention is much faster than the full-scale adoption of new technologies. Adoption of new technologies may be difficult for many reasons. First, adoption is a very expensive process as new equipment has to be purchased, infrastructure of an entity, which buys and installs this technology, has to be appropriately adjusted. Employees have to obtain sometimes completely new skills in order to able to operate new technological equipment. It can get even more complicated and expensive if a new technology requires updates on other machines so that the whole network works properly.
Second, the ‘time-to-market’ problem matters. For a technology to be on the market, years are sometimes necessary before it gets promoted on a large scale. Thus, businesses, which promote clean techs, should certainly consider this problem as a serious obstacle, when it comes to projection of technology deployment plans in the future. Some scientists argue that patenting can become a solution for faster deployment of technologies. For example, in the research done by Chatham House and CambridgeIP is demonstrated that the pace of deployment of new technologies has accelerated in many industries in the last decade due to rapid increase in patenting.
Third, many investors, which promote new technologies are often reluctant to sell technologies to countries, which have unstable investment regimes and cannot guarantee stable return on investment. There is hardly any economic incentive for them to consider developing countries for doing their business and promote clean technologies there. Therefore, unless investors are not interested in the markets of emerging economies, deployment of new technologies in those countries within the global campaign of cutting green-house gas emissions may likely remain mainly empty words.
Fourth, persistence of large energy companies plays its role. Energy giants constantly try to lobby their interests so that there is hardly much space left for adoption of clean technologies. The reason is that it may get too costly for them to shift to new technologies rather than to keep on using existing equipment and resources.
Therefore, the major conclusion which can be drawn is that eliminating barriers to technology adoption should be as important as developing new clean technologies.

by Roman Vakulchuk

Even though advantages associated with renewable energy are not so obvious at the moment, still its potential large contribution to climate change solution is clear. Today one can argue that existing gaps in coordination and cooperation between various institutions, responsible for renewable energy promotion at different levels lead to higher inefficiencies of these institutions. The main problems which put an obstacle for effectively functioning institutions are the problem of collective action and the policy coordination problem. To address these problems, international institutions must first of all achieve a higher level of participation of various players at different levels and optimize coordination with regard to transfer of renewable technologies. In turn, in order to better coordinate the policies between institutions promoting renewable technologies, communication and cooperation have to be strengthened at different governance levels. At the moment players and institutions within the realm of renewable energy poorly coordinate their policies with each other and it has to do with uneven degree of participation and diverging incentives which different institutions face. The major challenge in that regard is of course to encourage institutions in the developed and developing world to follow the same “rules of the game” and carry equal responsibilities for mitigating climate change. For that aim institutions should have the same set of incentives. All initiatives within the climate change regime, including renewable energy governance, are dependent today on strong and effective institutional coordination. Today to address the tremendous collective action problem within renewable energy governance, institutions must first of all achieve the following targets: a higher level of participation of various players and maintenance of a high level of the enforcement of international agreements aimed at promotion of renewable energy. In turn, in order to better coordinate the policies between various renewable energy institutions, communication and cooperation have to be strengthened at different policy levels. Especially, strengthening accountability and transparency mechanisms of mobilisation, administration and disbursement of funds related to renewable energy promotion is seen of key importance. Strong institutions should be regarded as key players for attaining this goal. Crafting effective institutions, which could successfully promote renewables, should be the foremost priority of policy-makers and international organizations within global governance in the next decade.