Carmen Bunzl - Universidad Pontificia Comillas

Chapter 2. Options for future climate change architectures 89
standards would not be applied to all sectors and may entail some technological
lock-in. Equity is considered explicitly, but the real strength in this proposal lies
in the incentives it would create for participation and compliance. Global
participation would not be required because if enough countries adopt a
standard, others are likely to follow due to the tipping and network effects.
Countries might agree upon jointly developing and implementing specific
technologies. They would invest together in research and development
activities.
Additional work is particularly needed to assist poor countries as these lack
scientific resources and economic infrastructure both to mitigate climate change
and to reduce their vulnerabilities to potential climate changes - adaptation.
An advantage is that this approach would gather like-minded countries with
common interests.
On the other hand, the approach takes into account only the long term
emission reduction and may not affect short term emissions.
The formal commitment to promote and cooperate in the development,
application and diffusion of technology is already included in the UNFCCC
(Article 4.1(c)), but specific measures to enhance such development are to be
defined.
Some examples of existing coordinated international R&D activities are the
following: International Partnership for a Hydrogen Economy (www.iphe.net),
Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Partnership (www.reeep.org) or the
Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate
(www.asiapacificpartnership.org).
2.5 Development oriented actions
An example may be the sustainable development policies and measures (SD
PAMs) approach. It consists of a pledge to implement development policies that
Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingeniería ICAI Carmen Bunzl Boulet Junio 2008