KEY MESSAGES

The private sector is the major driver of innovation and the diffusion of technologies around the world. But governments can help to promote international collaboration to overcome barriers to technology development. Technology co-operation enables the sharing of risks, rewards and progress of technology development and enables co-ordination of priorities.

Mutual recognition of the value contributed by country's investments in new technologies and innovation could usefully be built into international commitments.

International R&D co-operation can take many forms. Coherent, urgent and broadly based action requires international understanding and co-operation, embodied in a range of formal multilateral agreements and informal arrangements. Co-operation can focus on:

• Sharing knowledge and information, including between developed and developing countries

• Co-ordinating R&D priorities in different national programmes

• Pooling risk and reward for major investments in R&D, including demonstration projects

A global portfolio that emerges from individual national R&D priorities and deployment support may not be sufficiently diverse, and is likely to place too little weight on some technologies with global potential, such as biomass. International discussion and coordination of priorities for investment in R&D and early stage deployment could play an important role in developing a broadly-based portfolio of cost-effective abatement options.

A small number of technologies, including solar PV, CCS, bio-energy and hydrogen have been identified in international assessments as having significant global potential. Dedicated international programmes could play a role in accelerating R&D in these areas.