Technological innovation can lower the cost of achieving environmental objectives, so it is important to understand how environmental policy design and technological innovation are linked. This is particularly true in the area of climate change where the estimated future costs of reducing greenhouse gas emissions are affected greatly by the technological trajectory of the economy. While we suspect that public policy can play an important role in accelerating the development and diffusion of climate change mitigation and adaptation technologies, empirical evidence in this area remains scant. This book presents a series of papers that explore the extent to which technological innovation can lower the cost of achieving climate change mitigation objectives.
Inducing environmental innovation is a significant challenge to policy-makers. Efforts to design public policies that address these issues are motivated by the fact that innovations can allow for improved environmental quality at lower cost.
Technological innovation can help realise environmental objectives in a less costly manner than would otherwise be the case. Thus, understanding the role that technological innovation can play in achieving environmental objectives is important for policy debates.
Technological diffusion is recognized as a key pillar of climate change mitigation in environmental agreements.
Using novel data on patents, trade of equipment goods, and foreign direct investments and insights from the economic literature, the paper seeks to lay out the state of knowledge on the role of innovation and the diffusion of technologies in the greening of global value chains as well as some of