Transcript SUMMARY OF SUBMISSIONS BY PARTIES I.F. Vladu Sustainable Development Programme Technology Sub-programme UNFCCC 19 April 2002 Beijing, China.

SUMMARY OF SUBMISSIONS
BY PARTIES
I.F. Vladu
Sustainable Development Programme
Technology Sub-programme
UNFCCC
19 April 2002
Beijing, China
1
SBSTA 15th MANDATE
The secretariat was requested to:
 Continue its work on the technology information
system, drawing on links between its work and the
work of existing institutions and networks, in
particular, information relating to adaptation
technologies.
 Explore the feasibility of including information on:
Examples of success stories and case studies on
technology transfer.
Joint research and development programs.
Private and publicly-owned technologies.
 Summarize the submissions from Parties, including
feedback on their experience in using the system.
IAEA
I.F. Vladu
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RESPONSE FORM PARTIES

Received submissions from:
 Canada
 China
 Spain, on behalf of the European Community and its
member states and Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech
Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania,
Slovakia, and Slovenia.
 United States of America
 Uzbekistan

IAEA
A summary of issues follows.
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ENSURE THAT CLIENTS’ NEEDS ARE MET
IAEA

Make certain that information on technology transfer
is ‘user-friendly’ so that it is accessible to the widestpossible audience.

Overviews and/or brief introduction should be
provided on the main page of each module.

The content table and the web site instruction should
show in different versions in UN official languages
with the development of the web site.

Maintain focus.
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CLARIFY THE STRUCTURE AND FUNCTIONS
OF THE CLEARINGHOUSE
IAEA

Conduct a full and comprehensive needs assessment of
different functions of the clearinghouse before details of
different datasets are finalised or further elaborated. Such needs
assessment should focus on both the end user and the
applicable technologies and its presentation. In this context,
particular attention should be paid to the specific constraints
and needs expressed by DC. The output of these further needs
assessment considerations should then determine aspects of
the clearinghouse structure.

The information clearing house should rather function as a
gateway to existing EST databases instead of serving as an
information library.

Maintain the clearinghouse as an agent or broker for information
access be kept alive, rather than as an all-encompassing
archive.
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MAXIMIZE THE USE OF EXISTING
INSTITUTIONS, NETWORKS AND RESOURCES

Linkage to and incorporation of, other technology
transfer initiatives:
 Act as a gateway to existing information.
 An agent or broker.

IAEA
Entrust another organization with the day-to-day
management of TT:CLEAR (centralized clearing
house).
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ENHANCE THE NEEDS ASSESSMENT
PROCESS
IAEA

Draw upon existing mechanisms such as
information made available from national
communications and other related national reports
and channels (e.g. NAPAs that will be prepared by
least developed countries).

Incorporate a tendering system for posting
competitions for projects.

Establish and inventory of methodologies.
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RECOGNIZE THE PIVOTAL ROLE OF THE
PRIVATE SECTOR
IAEA

Made explicit that the commercialisation of
technology is often the optimal method for
technology transfer.

Practitioners/program managers versus negotiators
are able to access the information on technology.
Focus on ensuring these people are aware of this
initiative, and other existing mechanisms for
technology transfer.
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ENSURE THE SUSTAINABILITY OF THESE
SYSTEMS
IAEA

Formulate a detailed evaluation plan during the
testing period, consisting of a concrete set of
outcome measures.

Develop clear understanding of the resource
implications of TT: CLEAR.

Look at possibilities for cost recovery -> Nominal
user fees for private firms.
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ADOPT A COMMUNICATION
STRATEGY/OUTREACH PROGRAM
IAEA

Define criteria and methodology for selecting
technologies and projects for the databases.

Establish mechanism for data maintenance and
update.

Measures to improve the reliability of data and
information sources should be taken into account.

A close assessment should be made of the
correlation and relationship maintained between
information and data from, and available to, private
sector projects and technologies and those led by
national and international institutions in the
clearinghouse.
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FURTHER ENHANCE THE INFORMATION
COVERAGE, DEPTH, AND ACCURACY.
IAEA

Define criteria and methodology for selecting
technologies and projects for the databases.

Establish mechanism for data maintenance and
update.

Measures to improve the reliability of data and
information sources should be taken into account.

A close assessment should be made of the
correlation and relationship maintained between
information and data from and available to private
sector projects and technologies and those led by
national and international institutions in the
clearinghouse.
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TECHNOLOGY INFORMATION
IAEA

Link with financial information, policies.

Add an attribute on technology ownership.

Technology comparison side-by-side: other
complementary tools should also be developed for
technology comparison. In this way, the risks of
systematic distortions and errors can be avoided
more or less.

Comparison of technology levels should be made
possible not only between technologies in developed
and developing countries, but also between
advanced and laggard technologies among
developed countries.
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USE PATENT INFORMATION

There are some relevant organisations, which have made
available free of charge via the internet a large amount of
information on technologies by providing access to a large
amount of patent documents (which have been scanned and
are available in .pdf format). To set an example, 30 million
documents from more than 50 countries are available via
internet (offered free charge by the European Patent Office).

Use International Patent Classification system (IPC) for
technology classification (exists in several languages).
 Would be easier to access information from patent databases.
 There are many professionals worldwide familiar with this system.

IAEA
Use patent information search engines
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INFORMATION DISSEMINATION

IAEA
In some countries, the Internet is faced with risks in
sense of reliability, security, and limitation of access:
disseminate the information of technology transfer
on CD-ROMs, diskettes, and/or by newsletter. (China,
EU)
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CAPABILITIES OF THE SEARCH ENGINE
IAEA

Makes the documents searched from outside
database linked to this information system
accessible.

Use patent information search engines.

Broader links may be established between the
searching engine and web sites of more parties,
professional and business societies, NGOs, and
excellent research institutions.

In the searching process, the key words are given by
the system, rather than entered by users, which is
inconvenient for users in many cases.
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INCLUDE A “NEWS” MODULE
IAEA

News on policy changes, project progresses, and
any activities related to technology transfer.

Brief guidance of and introduction to the latest
scientific findings and technological inventions.

News to be provided by Parties.
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UPDATE/REVIEW THE TECHNICAL PAPER

Some of the missing elements:




IAEA
Criteria to select technologies
Methodologies and information on effectiveness of
technology transfer.
Elaboration on financial mechanisms
Mechanisms to update the technical paper
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ROLE OF PARTIES
IAEA

It would be helpful for parties to provide and update the data
and information regularly. However, developing country parties
may have a lack of resources to do so. In this case, financial
and technical assistance should be made available to
developing country parties to join the process of data update
for the technology information system.

It has been suggested to allow providers of technological
information to remotely include the information in TT:CLEAR
that are important in their understanding. But this approach has
the disadvantage of keeping track whether necessary updates
are really done at regular intervals. Normally all organisations
have their own project data base. They will keep updates on
their information system. It should be considered whether it
might not be sufficient for a clearing house to guide the
interested user to these individual data bases instead of setting
up and, even more difficult, maintaining a separate data base
different from the one provided already by various
organisations or commercial companies.
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ROLE OF PARTIES





IAEA
Give assistance to update system information on the projects
undertaken to accomplish the Convention and Protocol
objectives.
Identify group of experts and promote the use of the system by
these experts.
Collaborate to identify the relevant sources of information in
their countries.
Communicate to the system administrator relevant news that
could be included in the system (tax incentives, legislative
news, excerpts of journal or technical papers news considered
relevant to other Parties, etc). Further discussion is still
needed in terms of what could be the cost of providing this
service.
Provide information on decision tools to evaluate strategies on
climate change.
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ROLE OF SECRETARIAT
IAEA

The Decision 4/CP.7on the framework for meaningful and
effective actions to enhance the implementation of Article 4,
paragraph 5, of the Convention, taken in Marrakech, stipulates
in paragraph 2 to enhance the flow of information on the
transfer of EST. Therefore, the secretariat was requested in the
decision to develop a new search engine on the Internet and
accelerate its work on the technology transfer information
clearing house. The decision emphasises the cooperation with
CTI and other relevant organisations as well as the networking
with existing information centres.

The EU fully supports the decision with the understanding that
the secretariat has a leading role in the current work on the
technology information component of the framework. What role
the secretariat should have in the future needs to be discussed
within the overall dialogue to assign appropriate roles to the
various relevant stakeholders in the information system on
technology transfer.
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ESTABLISH NATIONAL, REGIONAL AND SUBREGIONAL CENTERS

GEF/UNFCCC should provide support for centers:
 These centers will have the role to integrate information,
provide feedback, exchange of experience, capacity building
and establishing priorities and SD (Uzbekistan)
IAEA
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BETA TESTING
IAEA

The system was up-and-running at the beginning of
September.

E-mails have been sent to Parties inviting them to
register. The e-mails included the list of projects for
the country (no feedback received on the list of
projects).

Comments and recommendations provided by email, web-board, during presentations and direct
discussions.

44 Parties registered to date (some 160 users).
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0
IAEA
Armenia
Asian Development Bank
Australia
Austria
Botswana
Dominican Republic
Fiji
Finland
Ghana
Indonesia
Morocco
Pakistan
Panama
Peru
Philippines
Poland
Taiwan, Province of China
Thailand
Trinidad and Tobago
Uruguay
Zimbabwe
Belgium
Bolivia
Brazil
European Union
Hungary
India
Nigeria
Norway
Republic of Korea
Republic of Moldova
Russian Federation
Sweden
UNIDO
Italy
Mexico
Romania
Spain
Switzerland
Turkey
Argentina
Denmark
China
Japan
Germany
France
United Kingdom
Canada
UNFCCC
United States of America
REISTERED USERS
25
party
user
staff
parties = 44 (51), user = 95, staff =16
20
15
10
5
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FEEDBACK
IAEA

Many comments related to functionality/user –
interface… Implemented in the version 0.2

Average access: 5 users/day, 2,000-3,000 pages,
short visits

Strong increase in use before sessions (meetings).

The system is not well known to other “groups” (AI,
NAI, LDC/Adaptation, capacity building).
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POSSIBLE USE IN UNFCCC

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
IAEA
National communications of Annex I Parties.
Initial national communications of Non Annex I
Parties.
CDM – small projects
LDCs – NAPAs.
Capacity building.
Article 6 (technical paper/structure of the
clearinghouse).
Cooperation with GEF
Registration of NGOs
Inventory of adaptation models
Roster of experts and contacts
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END
IAEA
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