On 16 March 2023, the United Nations (UN) published its Technology and Innovation Report 2023 on Opening Green Window: Technological opportunities for low-carbon world.
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The report focused on the concept of green innovation for generating new or enhanced goods and services, leaving lighter carbon footprints and opening up green windows of opportunity. As one of the direct government interventions, the regulations play an essential role to support the establishment of new green sectors, to foster the competition in the telecommunications sector, and to provide the specific legal frameworks for certain technologies. In detail, it provided some great examples of the good impacts of recent legislation in different countries as well as the lack of comprehension of policies to facilitate green technologies.
Green Hydrogen
As referred to as the hydrogen produced through the electrolysis of water, using energy sourced from renewables, it releases likely three times as much energy as the same weight of gasoline, roughly seven times than the same weight of coal. However, the regulation and infrastructure of this sector is very unstable due to the lack of harmonised regulations and standards. There exist several hydrogen standards, such as CMS 70 a standard for the transport and industrial sectors, based on the EU legislation, ISCC PLUS, a voluntary certification recognised by the EU for bio-based and recycled raw materials, and Zero Carbon Certification Scheme which the Smart Energy Council initiated in 2020.
In addition, as a solid foundation, the EU launched Renewable Energy Directive II in 2022 and the U.S. implemented the Inflation Reduction Act in the same year to stimulate the production of clean hydrogen through tax credits. Back in 2011, the state of California introduced the Low Carbon Fuel Standard allowing three possible ways to produce renewable hydrogen. In conclusion, the report suggested the lead governmental agencies should mobilise resources and convene stakeholders to assess overall state capacity, their strength through regulations and extension support systems via public services provided.
International Collaboration, IP & environmental regulation regimes
The report considered that the key area of international cooperation is setting and harmonising international standards, technical norms and transpositioning them into national regulation. In respect of green hydrogen, this would guarantee the origin, hydrogen purity, equipment specifications and blending into the gas grid. Moreover, the International Energy Agency (IEA) Implementing Agreements established the IEA as an intergovernmental organisation, advising energy policy to its member states to ensure reliable, affordable and clean energy as well as creating a patent pool for its inventing participants.
The report also called for the reform of the intellectual property regimes to allow developing countries to access frontier technologies but also the prevention of their abuse through compulsory licensing, etc. A strong regime would encourage innovation as an important incentive, for instance, pushing for stricter environmental regulations. However, in many countries, such as in Bangladesh, the government is still negligent in setting environmental legislation. It also pointed out the effect of environmental degradation due to the increase in trade in developing countries where the environmental regulations are more relaxed or non-enforced.
Vietnam
This report is very interesting to read and update about green technologies, especially in my home country. Accordingly, the public-private collaboration between the government and Decathlon aims to generate and exploit the biomass energy from rice husks – a by-product of rice processing. They target to use 100% biomass for industrial heat and power by 2030. Also, Vietnam has installed floating solar power generating system (i.e., they equipped the solar panels on the surface of reservoirs, industrial ponds, lakes, near coast areas). They particularly reuse reservoirs originally built for hydro power and existing transmission infrastructure in the Da Mi project – having a lot of memory and meaning personally to me, to increase supply almost without marginal costs. Life may be short but one efficient green project can make the difference for generations.
For more interesting report: https://www.astraiagear.com/category/cool-things/
Source: https://unctad.org/publication/technology-and-innovation-report-2023