India is struggling hard to maintain climate change goals because of poor technology transfers.
India has also highlighted an issue of continued technology transfer from developed countries that has been forcing the country to stretch its national resources and had hitherto hindered progress on the critical climate goals. In its fourth biennial update report submitted to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change on December 30, 2024, India has referred to the challenges it faces in securing the necessary technologies for addressing climate change.
According to the report, while India is spending relatively a fair amount of effort and investment in climate efforts, the country has not received promised financial or technological support from the developed countries about climate change. It makes pretty difficult for India to achieve its climate goals because of inadequate technology transfer, and nowadays, the country is relying significantly on internal resources also. This has slowed efforts by India to reduce emissions and build resilience against impacts that come with climate change through diversion of resources to developing technology independently.
Technology Transfer Barriers Blocking Progress
Master technologies are spread over solar energy, wind power, bioenergy, electric vehicles, climate-resilient agriculture, and carbon capture. All of these underpin low-carbon development, which will not only help India address the challenges that climate change imposes but also the impacts. While the report makes it very clear what aspects of it would require international technology transfer so that India can deliver its set of climate targets, that is a matter for a future roadmap, not the NDC itself.
Unfortunately, this sector has been progressing at a snail’s pace. According to the BUR, high costs of technology, lack of adequate infrastructure, and regulatory barriers have limited access to relevant and affordable technologies. Moreover, the IPR regimes of developed countries have often been a barrier to the transfer of critical technologies. The report says that these barriers have limited India’s ability to adopt necessary technologies to fight climate change rapidly.
India mentioned the technology to be utilized for reducing emissions of greenhouse gases and adapting to climate change within its BURs of previous versions. Despite these efforts, the required technologies are not being transferred or offered as promised in the climate agreements.
Importance of Technology Transfer
This has meant that the lack of technology transfer has left India to improvise these solutions in-house at a cost, taking resources from other important sectors, thereby over-stretching national capacity, which has only served to retard its climate change progress. Stronger international cooperation to meet this challenge of supply-side and demand-side obstacles limiting the flow of technology has been pressed for by India.
Technology transfer: This is the core aspect of international action towards the elimination of climate change concerns. This is carried out based on the CBDR-RC principle wherein the developed countries have to provide finances and technology to the developing countries so that the latter may perform their action regarding climate change. In the BUR report, it was seen that, according to the present international regime for climate change, India had not been significantly benefited.
The Technology Mechanism, which comprises the Technology Executive Committee (TEC) and the Climate Technology Centre and Network (CTCN), was established to facilitate the diffusion of climate-friendly technologies to developing countries. As India’s report puts it, however, it has not led to the achievement of expected results in terms of access or technology transfer.
Demand and Supply-Side Challenges
India faces several issues on both its demand and supply sides that limit the flow of technologies. Affordable and scalable technologies have limited access on the demand side. The high costs combined with infrastructural and regulatory barriers limit the access of such tools for proper management of climate challenges in India.
Supply side: On the supply side, IPR regimes often function as a serious hindrance to technology transfer. Protection of IPRs can work as a barrier to access high technologies for the developing world. Such restrictions, therefore, deny to a country like India access to advanced technologies without which its development and also efforts to cope with climate change may not materialize.
A holistic approach is what the report deems necessary for dealing with these issues. Policy interventions, capacity building, financial support, and international cooperation would go into making the technology transfer feasible in an effective manner.
Calls from India to UN Climate Talks
India has made the question of technology transfer on various international platforms, which now includes that of the Baku, Azerbaijan 2023 UN climate change conference. In attempting to address it there, India called upon developed countries to break the bottlenecks inhibiting technology transfer relating to intellectual property rights. According to India, developing countries need solutions involving clean energy technologies and carbon removal systems and are not in a position to acquire these novelties under the current system.
It is an extremely ambitious approach by India towards climate change goals, to reduce carbon emissions and embrace a clean and efficient low-carbon economy as the way of the future. The progress in these steps depends on when these technologies can be available; however, till now, non-availability of such technology is being cited as the most important area of resistance in this respect and India has strongly appealed to all the developed countries to take on their commitment on the transfer of climate support facilities to the countries under development.
The fourth biennial update report submitted by India to the UNFCCC has put a lot of emphasis on technology transfer as part of the climate strategy for the country. Huge national efforts have been made, and huge investments have been done in climate action, but slow international technology transfer, coupled with barriers like high costs and intellectual property restrictions, has been impeding the ability of the country to meet its climate objectives.
Conclusion:Over such challenges, India called for an even stronger system of technology transfer that removes the present obstacles and brings developing countries on an equal footing with others to obtain tools they may need to address the issue of climate change. The experience in the country highlights a need for greater international cooperation as well as much more robust support for action on climate – especially in the developing world.
Source: India’s Fourth Biennial Update Report to the UNFCCC, UN Climate Change Conference Reports.