Projects: Finance | Overview | Technology | Economic Opportunity

Our work is currently organised into three themes:

Technology

A technological revolution is required if greenhouse gas emissions are to be cut dramatically enough to avoid a climate crisis. There is already a wealth of climate-friendly technology that can be put to use sooner and more widely; many more new inventions will be needed too. It is the GCN's view that governments must be at the heart of the low-carbon technology revolution, driving it with policy and finance.

In 2009, we published 'Breaking Through on Technology', a study examining the barriers to the development, commercialisation, deployment and 'transfer' of low-carbon technologies and setting out what governments need to do to overcome them. The study's findings emphasise the importance of technology to all GCN member countries, underlining an urgent need to place technology ‘front and centre’ in the international negotiations.

Finance is crucial to the technology narrative. The role for an international agreement is to ensure that there is a supply of money to help new technologies reach a mass market more quickly, especially in the developing world, where access to low-cost finance is limited.

Read our report: Breaking Through on Technology

Finance

The technological revolution will not happen by accident. As well as government-led technology policy, public and private finance will be needed in large sums to ensure new inventions are demonstrated and then used widely and often before they are fully cost effective. This will require new financial thinking at the domestic level and between governments to determine how different sources of finance can be mobilised and chanelled effectively.

We will soon be publishing a major study anaylsing existing and identifying new politically sustainable sources of climate finance, and the capital and incremental costs of market creation policies to stimulate priority low-carbon technologies and sectors in GCN member countries.

Read our report: Investing in Clean Energy: How can developed countries best help developing countries finance climate-friendly energy investments?

Economic Opportunity

New technology promises opportunities for economies to develop new markets and diversify and create new jobs, but these will not be realised without government intervention. Our 2010 study of low-carbon employment in the energy sector argues that the bolder government policies to promote rapid growth in climate-friendly innovations and industries are, the higher the likelihood of new job creation on a significant scale.

Low-carbon Industrial Strategy

United States
Low-carbon Innovation: A Uniquely American Strategy for Industrial Renewal 

This report examines how industrial strategy in the United States to achieve carbon reductions must be orientated around innovation and should promote job creation, competitiveness and energy security.

Nigeria
Towards a low carbon industrial strategy for Nigeria 

Nigeria’s policymakers have set a clear path for economic growth in the next decade involving a diversification away from a reliance on oil and towards an expansion of industrial production. ICEED Nigeria argues that three priority sectors – energy, cement production and textiles – should form the basis of an industrial strategy as those in which the development and deployment of low-carbon technologies and practices will make a difference.

Poland
Low Carbon Industrial Policy: An example of the impact of Europeanisation on Poland (Niskoemisyjna gospodarka w Polsce – Polish only)
Download report in English

Warsaw's Institute for Public Affairs, the newest member of the Global Climate Network, focuses on how, in order to find political favour, an industrial strategy to help reduce carbon emissions in Poland must be inherently Polish and not driven primarily from Brussels. It suggests that through such an approach, the Polish economy could have much to gain from a low-carbon focus. This work is particularly important in view of Poland's EU Presidency from July to December 2011, during which time it will lead the Europe's delegation to the critical UN climate talks in Durban, South Africa.