Saturday, April 12, 2014

Quick start and challenges for UN’s tech transfer body

Jan Piotrowski in SciDev.net: The “lightning speed” with which a UN-led initiative to transfer technologies for tackling climate change to developing nations has been set up is impressive, but remaining challenges could prevent its success, a member of its advisory board says.

Difficulties in encouraging applications for technological assistance and concern about finding enough partners to build a viable international network of expertise were two issues raised at the third advisory board meeting of the Climate Technology Centre and Network (CTCN) in Copenhagen, Denmark, last month (19-21 March), says Heleen de Coninck.

The associate professor of innovation studies and sustainability at the Netherlands’ Radboud University Nijmegen and outgoing board member credits the CTCN’s relative autonomy from UN bodies for its rapid progress. It is now up and running with US$35 million of funding just over a year since it was approved at the UN climate change conference in Doha in late 2012. “This has been set up at lightning speed for the UN. Everyone is admiring how quickly it has been achieved,” she tells SciDev.Net.

Under the auspices of the UN Environment Programme, the CTCN aims to provide developing nations with climate-related technology transfer and capacity building through the shared expertise of its 11 core research institutes and a wider network of partners.

After a planning phase, the network opened for applications for assistance in February. Several have now been received, including a request from Chile for expert assistance in setting up a biodiversity monitoring system, says de Coninck....

Food on a conveyor belt in Seoul, shot by Daderot, Wikimedia Commons,  under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication 

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