Shifting our fossil-fuelled civilisation to clean modes of production and consumption requires deep transformations in our energy and economic systems. Innovation in physical technologies and social behaviours is key to this transformation. But innovation has not been at the heart of economic models of climate change. This paper reviews the state of the art on the economics of innovation, applies recent insights to climate change. The core insight is that technological innovation is a path-dependent process in which history and expectations matter greatly in determining eventual outcomes.
This paper considers the extent to which the Northeast Asian countries - China, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan - are collaborating as a legitimate group to produce “green” R&D. Forcing a revision of traditional institutional analysis, such collaboration efforts can overlap with existing policies of regional coordination, but they can also pave the way for future, formal coordination efforts. Employing a mixed methods approach which triangulates data based on expert interviews as well as green patenting output over the last 33 years, it is confirmed here that the presence of the Northeast Asian environmental regime is strongly associated with the development of green R&D among countries in the region. It can be further confirmed that Northeast Asia is on the cusp of becoming a genuine counterweight to the existing dominance of the U.S. and Western Europe.
Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan are deficient of domestic fossil energy sources and depend significantly on imported fuels. Since the oil shock in the 1970s, all three countries have promoted renewable energy as an alternative energy source to improve energy security. Currently, renewable energy is being promoted to build low-carbon economies. This study reviews the development of renewable energy policies and roadmaps. It also examines and compares strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) of these countries in the context of advancing renewable energy policies and technologies and expanding domestic renewable energy installations, as well as strategically positioning themselves in the international renewable energy market as exporters of clean energy technologies. Through the SWOT analysis, this paper identifies a capacity for additional renewable energy deployment in these countries and highlights the necessity of increased cooperation between the three countries to strengthen their domestic and regional renewable energy sectors and compete in the global renewable energy market in the post-Fukushima era.
As a global agreement on climate mitigation and absolute emissions reductions remains grid-locked, this paper assesses whether the prospects for international technology cooperation in low-carbon sectors can be improved. It analyses the case of international cooperation on electric vehicle technologies to elaborate on the trade-offs that cooperation such as this inherently attempts to balance– national growth objectives of industrial and technology development versus the global goods benefit of reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. It focuses on bilateral German-Chinese programmes for electric vehicle development, as well as multilateral platforms on low-carbon technology cooperation related to electric vehicles. Based on insights from these cases studies, this paper ultimately provides policy recommendations to address gaps in international technology cooperation at a bilateral level for ongoing German-Chinese engagement on electric vehicles; and at a multilateral level with a focus on the emerging technology cooperation framework of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
Green growth is a relatively new concept aimed at focusing attention on achieving sustainable development through the efficient use of environmental assets without slowing economic growth. This paper presents a real-world application of the concept, and identifies viable policy options for achieving a complementary environmental regulatory framework that minimizes output and employment losses. The analysis utilizes macro level data from the Turkish economy, and develops an applied general equilibrium model to assess the impact of a selected number of green policy instruments and public policy intervention mechanisms, including market-based incentives designed to accelerate technology adoption and achieve higher employment and sustainable growth patterns.