Background

1. The Paris Agreement sets out a global action plan to put the world on track to avoid dangerous climate change by limiting global warming to well below 2°C. The Agreement opens op for international collaborations that brings together Governments, civil society, the private sector, the United Nations system and other actors and mobilizes all available resources for the transition of economies to low emission climate resilient development paths. 

2. In the lead up to the Paris Agreement countries prepared their Nationally Determined Contributions. After the ratification of the Agreement countries now have to deliver their contributions which are partly voluntary and partly conditional. In going forward, developing countries have technology development and transfer as one of the key pillars to an effective international response to climate change, with requirements for support on finance and capacity building.

3. The TEC agreed, in its rolling work plan for 2019-2022, to an activity on examining enabling environments, including challenges and opportunities to incentivize the private and public sector in the development and transfer of technologies, building on TEC previous work on adaptation and mitigation technologies. This activity contains a paper , a thematic dialogue and a policy brief.

4. The findings of the paper indicate that economic and financial barriers are central to and that to stimulate technology development and transfer beyond current levels, the results point to the necessity of articulating and presenting opportunities, beyond a discussion of technology hardware and financing, including revisions in related policy and the broader regulatory enabling frameworks. This further leads to private investors, technology suppliers and consumers being key actors that governments and state agencies must engage with to create, steer and scale up markets for technologies. The thematic dialogue will build on the paper on examining enabling environments and challenges, including barriers based on TNA, NDC, CTCN technical assistance, and relevant TEC Briefs which the TEC endorsed at its 23rd meeting.

Objectives

5. The dialogue aims to:
- Identify the role enabling environments play in supporting countries to achieve the Paris Agreement goals;
- Identify how to enhance the impact of enabling environments, by considering success stories, good practices and lessons learned in their implementation;
- Identify opportunities for unlocking financing for enabling environments in developing countries, and for enhancing the impact of related investment, including obtaining financial support for such activities.