Task 5 You are going to read a text about international cooperation. What is the message of the text?
Globalization has been a major driver of both high- and low-carbon growth over the last 25 years. World trade more than tripled in that period, reaching US$18 trillion in 2017. This has provided an important boost to developing and emerging economies as well as developed ones, but, as discussed in strategic context, it has also led to a significant shift in production to countries with weaker pollution controls and predominantly coal-based energy systems. Thus, the trade boom has likely increased global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
Yet trade has also played a major role in accelerating the diffusion of low-carbon technologies such as solar and wind power and light-emitting diodes (LEDs). The ability to produce components in low-cost countries, combined with expanding global markets, has led to a dramatic reduction in the cost of those technologies, enabling broader deployment.
The low-carbon economy is now a global phenomenon. International trade in environmental goods and services totals nearly US$1 trillion per year, or around 5% of all trade. Trade in low-carbon and energy-efficient technologies alone is expected to reach US$2.2 trillion in 2020, a tripling of current levels. Two-fifths of that market are expected to be in emerging and developing economies, and the companies supplying these markets come from all over the world.
Most of this new activity has been driven by national and sub-national policies. This new global economy has largely been driven by national policy-making, as individual countries have introduced incentives for low-carbon energy supply and energy efficiency and other climate-related policies. Outside the European Union, whose single market policies cover 27 countries together, there has been little attempt to harmonize national policies. In some cases, such as vehicle fuel efficiency standards, independent policy-making has led to a convergence of policy between countries; in others, such as carbon pricing, coordination has proved more elusive.
But there is considerable potential for international cooperation to expand and enhance it. Theseare the fiveareas:
§ A new international legal agreement to provide a foundation of multilateral rules and principles to underpin national climate action.
§ International climate finance, including both public- and private-sector investments in mitigation and adaptation.
§ Trade agreements to lower tariffs on environmental goods and services, enable faster resolution of trade disputes, and raise standards for low-carbon goods.
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§ Voluntary collaborations among businesses, governments and other actors in the global economy to help catalyze action in specific sectors and fields.
§ Changes to the international rules and norms which influence the economic behavior of businesses, financial institutions and governments.
Access to new technologies is an important requirement for developing countries seeking to pursue low-carbon and climate-resilient development. A Chatham House analysis suggests that recent diffusion rates of relevant technologies need to be at least doubled if the 2°C goal is to remain within reach. Innovation, several mechanisms are being pioneered that could enhance technology transfer by making climate-related patents available free or at low cost. These include voluntary patent pools, open source innovation and open licensing arrangements. Experience in other areas, such as medicines for infectious diseases, shows that multilateral financing to cover licensing fees or to buy out patents on key technologies of public interest can be useful if they are well designed. One example in the climate field might be new crop varieties that are more resilient to climate change impacts, for which the intellectual property rights may constitute a significant part of the costs. But they may not be as relevant for clean energy technologies and their components, many of which are variations on what is already available in the market. In many cases developers have not applied for patent protection for these technologies in developing countries, as there is little commercial benefit from doing so; there are therefore often no patent-related restrictions on their use. Less than 1% of the world’s principal climate mitigation-related technologies have been registered as patents in Africa.
More generally, there is strong evidence that a key factor in enabling greater clean energy technology transfer is having local capacity to successfully adopt the new technologies. Strengthening technical and scientific capacities is therefore a critical step toward enhanced technology transfer.
Comprehension to text I
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