The Technology Executive Committee (TEC) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) recently convened a workshop seeking to understand how strengthening national systems of innovation (NSIs) might help to foster the transfer of climate technologies to developing countries. This article reviews insights from the literatures on Innovation Studies and Socio-Technical Transitions to demonstrate why this focus on fostering innovation systems has potential to be more transformative as an international policy mechanism for climate technology transfer than anything the UNFCCC has considered to date. Based on insights from empirical research, the article also articulates how the existing architecture of the UNFCCC Technology Mechanism could be usefully extended by supporting the establishment of CRIBs (climate relevant innovation-system builders) in developing countries – key institutions focused on nurturing the climate-relevant innovation systems and building technological capabilities that form the bedrock of transformative, climate-compatible technological change and development.
Policy relevance
This article makes a direct contribution to current work by the TEC of the UNFCCC on enhancing enabling environments for and addressing barriers to technology development and transfer (specifically, it will contribute to Activity 4.3 of the TEC's 2014–15 rolling workplan ‘Further work on enablers and barriers, taking into account the outcomes of the workshop on NSIs’). The article articulates both the conceptual basis that justifies a focus on NSIs in relation to climate technology transfer and makes concrete recommendations as to how this can be implemented under the Convention as a Party-driven extension to the existing architecture of the Technology Mechanism. 相似文献
A method is described for the determination of organic carbon in liquid seawater samples by combustion at a high temperature. Although the method is not easy to perform, it has been successfully employed for a direct comparison to the standard method of persulfate oxidation. With seawater from the central western North Atlantic Ocean, the standard method measured an average of 78% as much carbon as the high temperature method. This indicates organic matter in seawater that is resistant to oxidation by persulfate; some of it appears to be of a colloidal nature. The persulfate resistant organic matter is most noticeable in a region below the surface 100 m and seems to decrease slowly with depth, indicating deep ocean biological utilization of organic matter. Due to a possible procedural error in the standard persulfate oxidation method, the differences indicated here may actually be conservative and the content of total organic carbon in the sea may be as much as twice as high as has been indicated by previous estimates. 相似文献
Dissolved Fe, Mn and Al concentrations (dFe, dMn and dAl hereafter) in surface waters and the water column of the Northeast Atlantic and the European continental shelf are reported. Following an episode of enhanced Saharan dust inputs over the Northeast Atlantic Ocean prior and during the cruise in March 1998, surface concentrations were enhanced up to 4 nmol L− 1 dFe, 3 nmol L− 1 dMn and 40 nmol L− 1 dAl and returned to 0.6 nmol L− 1 dFe, 0.5 nmol L− 1 dMn and 10 nmol L− 1 dAl towards the end of the cruise three weeks later. A simple steady state model (MADCOW, [Measures, C.I., Brown, E.T., 1996. Estimating dust input to the Atlantic Ocean using surface water aluminium concentrations. In: Guerzoni. S. and Chester. R. (Eds.), The impact of desert dust across the Mediterranean, Kluwer Academic Publishers, The Netherlands, pp. 301–311.]) was used which relies on surface ocean dAl as a proxy for atmospheric deposition of mineral dust. We estimated dust input at 1.8 g m− 2 yr− 1 (range 1.0–2.9 g m− 2 yr− 1) and fluxes of dFe, dMn and dAl were inferred. Mixed layer steady state residence times for dissolved metals were estimated at 1.3 yr for dFe (range 0.3–2.9 yr) and 1.9 yr for dMn (range 1.0–3.8 yr). The dFe residence time may have been overestimated and it is shown that 0.2–0.4 yr is probably more realistic. Using vertical dFe versus Apparent Oxygen Utilization (AOU) relationships as well as a biogeochemical two end member mixing model, regenerative Fe:C ratios were estimated respectively to be 20 ± 6 and 22 ± 5 μmol Fe:mol C. Combining the atmospheric flux of dFe to the upper water column with the latter Fe:C ratio, a ‘new iron’ supported primary productivity of only 15% (range 7%–56%) was deduced. This would imply that 85% (range 44–93%) of primary productivity could be supported by regenerated dFe. The open ocean surface data suggest that the continental shelf is probably not a major source of dissolved metals to the surface of the adjacent open ocean. Continental shelf concentrations of dMn, dFe, and to a lesser extent dAl, were well correlated with salinity and express mixing of a fresher continental end member with Atlantic Ocean water flowing onto the shelf. This means probably that diffusive benthic fluxes did not play a major role at the time of the cruise. 相似文献
We present the first trace element and age data combined with new Sr, Nd, and Pb isotope ratios on lavas from San Felix Island in the Southeast Pacific. A 40Ar/39Ar plateau age of 421 ± 18 ka implies young intraplate volcanic activity in this region relative to the ∼22 Ma old volcanism on the neighbouring Easter seamount chain (ESC). The incompatible element compositions of the San Felix magmas are similar to those of EM1-type basalts from Gough, although the isotopic compositions differ. San Felix formed some 20 Ma after the ESC plume affected the plate in this region but no chemical signature of the ESC material is observed in the young volcanic rocks. The composition of the San Felix basalts indicates a mantle source containing old continental lithospheric material from either metasomatized mantle or recycled sediments, which ascends in a weak mantle plume. 相似文献
Studies of normal fault systems in modern extensional regimes (e.g. Basin and Range), and in exhumed, ancient rift basins (e.g. Gulf of Suez Rift) have shown a link between the evolution of fault‐related footwall topography and associated erosional drainage systems. In this study, we use 3D seismic reflection data to image the footwall crest of a gravity‐driven fault system developed during late Middle Jurassic to Early Cretaceous rifting on the Halten Terrace, offshore Mid‐Norway. This 22‐km‐long fault system lacks significant footwall uplift, with hangingwall subsidence accommodating throw accumulation on the fault system. Significant erosion has occurred along the length of the footwall crest and is defined by 96 catchments characterized by erosional channels. These erosional channels consist of small, linear systems up to 750 m long located along the front of the fault footwall. Larger, dendritic channel systems extend further back (up to 3 km normal to fault strike) into the footwall. These channels are up to 7 km long, up to 50 m deep and up to 1 km wide. Fault throw varies along strike, with greatest throw in the centre of the fault decreasing towards the fault tips; localized throw minima are interpreted to represent segment linkage points, which were breached as the fault grew. Comparison of the catchment location to the throw distribution shows that the largest catchments are in the centre of the fault and decrease in size to the fault tips. There is no link between the location of the breached segment linkage points and the location and size of the footwall catchments, suggesting that the first‐order control on footwall erosion patterns is the overall fault‐throw distribution. 相似文献
Dual-Doppler lidar observations are used to investigate the structure and evolution of surface-layer flow over a suburban
area. The observations were made during the Joint Urban 2003 (JU2003) field experiment in Oklahoma City, U.S.A. in the summer
of 2003. This study focuses specifically on a 10-h sequence of scan data beginning shortly after noon local time on 7 July
2003. During this period two coherent Doppler lidars performed overlapping low elevation angle sector scans upwind and south
of Oklahoma City’s central business district. Radial velocity data from the two lidars are processed to reveal the structure
and evolution of the horizontal velocity field in the surface layer throughout the afternoon and during the evening transition
period. The retrieved velocity fields clearly show a tendency for turbulence structures to be elongated in the direction of
the mean flow throughout the entire 10-h study period. In order to quantify the observed anisotropy and its dependence on
stability, integral length scales are estimated directly from the spatially resolved velocity retrievals. As the flow became
more stably stratified the characteristic cross-stream dimension of the linear structures decreased. The streamwise component
was consistently more anisotropic than the cross-stream component, and both velocity components exhibited maximum anisotropy
under neutral conditions. The ratio of the streamwise to cross-stream length scale was estimated to be about eight for the
streamwise component, and four for the cross-stream component under neutral conditions. 相似文献