From needs to implementation: Stories from the technology needs assessments

Abstract

Enhancing the development, transfer, deployment and dissemination of technology is a key pillar of the international response to climate change. Technology Needs Assessments (TNAs) were strongly emphasized in the Paris Agreement, and they also play a central role under the ‘implementation’ theme of the newly agreed UNFCCC Technology Framework, which provides overarching guidance to the Technology Mechanism of the UNFCCC, itself comprised of the Technology Executive Committee and the Climate Technology Centre and Network. Henceforth, enhanced support to developing countries in conducting and implementing effective TNAs and implementing Technology Action Plans (TAPs) is instrumental to enhancing implementation of the Paris Agreement. With funding from the Global Environment Facility, UN Environment, through the UNEP DTU Partnership, supports developing countries in developing their TNAs and TAPs within the global Technology Needs Assessment project. Embedding the TNA and TAP results in existing sector and other ongoing plans and activities, such as those related to the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), are of paramount importance to enhance the options for the implementation of these processes. Thanks to the information that TNAs provide about the potential, ability and scale of climate change technologies, they can play a unique role in the formulation and implementation of NDCs. Actions identified in the TAPs highlight what needs to be done to activate robust market systems and the enabling conditions for technology transfer, diffusion and uptake. These actions can in turn strengthen longer-term strategies elaborated in NDCs and national adaptationplans (NAPs), as well as potentially increasing ambitions by making the means of implementation more concrete. Building on two previous publications, this publication provides a new set of success stories on how countries have used their TNAs and TAPs to advance the implementation of climate technologies. It provides examples from different regions and covers different sectors. The stories highlight how TNAs are used by developing countries as a highly practical tool that provides an effective and solid foundation upon which they can both scale up and implement action on climate technologies in their efforts to pursue the targets they agreed under the Paris Agreement, as well as in reaching their national Sustainable Development Goals.