Article 4 of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) calls for the transfer of technologies, including those for adaptation, from developed to developing countries (Climate Change Secretariat, 1992). Under various sub-articles, it lays out ways by which such transfers could be supported by the developed countries. Furthermore, at the Third session of the Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC in Kyoto, Japan, in December 1997, three new mechanisms of cooperative implementation were established (Climate Change Secretariat, 1998). The new mechanisms include transactions among Annex I Parties, international emissions trading (IET), which provides for cooperation among the Annex B Parties, and the clean development mechanism (CDM), which extends the scope of cooperation to non-Annex I Parties.

Domestic actions, and those taken in cooperation with other countries, will require an increased market penetration of environmentally sound technologies, many of which are particularly important in their application to each sector. What is the potential for the penetration of mitigation and adaptation technologies? What barriers exist to the increased market penetration of such technologies? Can these be overcome through the implementation of a mix of judicious policies, programmes and other measures? What can we learn from past experience in promoting these, or similar technologies? Is it better to intervene at the R&D stage or during the end-use of fuels and technology? The chapters in this section (Section II) address these questions using examples specific to each sector. Technology transfer activities may be evaluated at three levels - macro or national, sector-specific and project-specific. Many of the options explored in the Section II chapters are at the latter two levels. We present criteria that authors have used for the evaluation of what might constitute effective technology transfer activities.

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Special Report of Methodological and Technological Issues in Technology Transfer. 2000.