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Background
Information on climate-friendly technologies is available at numerous clearing houses, specialized web sites and technology centres around
the world. One way to share this expertise is to improve on line links and networking between institutions to create an information sharing
network of technology centres. Currently, international, national, regional and local clearing houses and centres gather and provide information
about climate-friendly technologies and know-how pertaining to the environment and to the energy, agriculture and other sectors. They are
often hosted by, or form part of, larger organizations that are supported by the private sector and/or governments or international organizations.
Linking these centres in a network could reduce gaps in the abilities of technology users, intermediaries and providers. Technology users and
intermediaries could do a better job in selecting environmentally sound technologies (ESTs) by having access to the range of information systems
available and the good quality and relevant information they contain. And technology providers could do a better job of promoting their ESTs by
being more familiar with their target audiences and their needs for technology information.
The Conference of the Parties (COP), by its decision 6/CP.10, encouraged the secretariat to continue its work on a pilot project on networking
between TT:CLEAR and national and regional technology information centres that would provide Parties with a clear understanding of the technical
feasibility and cost implications of the strengthening of technology centres in developing countries and to report on the outcome to the SBSTA
at its twenty-third session.
The main purpose of networking technology centres would be to share information about technologies and facilitate synergy between the existing
information systems so that available resources could be used more efficiently and the systems more effectively. The network could provide
a coherent, coordinated approach for finding, accessing, synthesizing and visualizing technology information. It could provide users with
a pool of validated data, information, assessments, reports and expertise tailored to their needs.
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Concepts and structure
The pilot network could bring together existing clearing houses, specialized web sites, portals and information networks maintained by various
technology centres, and make them nodes of the network. The pilot network would be guided by the following principles:
(a) Participation is voluntary;
(b) All nodes would have similar roles in the network;
(c) Sharing and exchanging of information over the network would be done in real time over the Internet;
(d) Users would be able to access information from, and provide feedback to, any node in the network;
(e) An important feature of the network would be its ability to tap into information contained in national and international patent databases;
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