Editing IPCC:AR6/WGIII/Chapter-5 (section)

=== Box 5.9 | Is Leapfrogging Possible? ===

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The concept of leapfrogging emerged in development economics ( [[#Soete--1985|Soete 1985]] ), energy policy ( [[#Goldemberg--1991|Goldemberg 1991]] ) and environmental regulation ( [[#Perkins--2003|Perkins 2003]] , which provides a first critical review of the concept), and refers to a development strategy that skips traditional and polluting development in favour of the most advanced concepts. For instance, in rural areas without telephone landlines or electricity access (cables), a direct shift to mobile telephony or distributed, locally-sourced energy systems is promoted, or economic development policies for pre-industrial economies forego the traditional initial emphasis on heavy industry industrialisation, instead focusing on services like finance or tourism. Often leapfrogging is enabled by learning and innovation externalities where improved knowledge and technologies become available for late adopters at low costs. The literature highlights many cases of successful leapfrogging but also highlights limitations ( [[#Watson--2011|Watson and Sauter 2011]] ); with example case studies for China ( [[#Gallagher--2006|Gallagher 2006]] ; [[#Chen--2011|Chen and Li-Hua 2011]] ); Mexico ( [[#Gallagher--2007|Gallagher and Zarsky 2007]] ); and Japan and Korea ( [[#Cho--1998|Cho et al. 1998]] ). Increasingly the concept is being integrated into the literature of low-carbon development, including innovation and technology transfer policies ( [[#Pigato--2020|Pigato et al. 2020]] ), highlighting in particular the importance of contextual factors of successful technology transfer and leapfrogging including: domestic absorptive capacity and technological capabilities ( [[#Cirera--2017|Cirera and Maloney 2017]] ); human capital, skills, and relevant technical know-how ( [[#Nelson--1966|Nelson and Phelps 1966]] ); the size of the market ( [[#Keller--2004|Keller 2004]] ); greater openness to trade ( [[#Sachs--1995|Sachs and Warner 1995]] ; [[#Keller--2004|Keller 2004]] ); geographical proximity to investors and financing ( [[#Comin--2012|Comin et al. 2012]] ); environmental regulatory proximity ( [[#Dechezleprêtre--2015|Dechezleprêtre et al. 2015]] ); and stronger protection of intellectual property rights ( [[#Dechezleprêtre--2013|Dechezleprêtre et al. 2013]] ; [[#Dussaux--2017|Dussaux et al. 2017]] ). The existence of a technological potential for leapfrogging therefore needs to be considered within a wider context of social, institutional, and economic factors that influence whether leapfrogging potentials can be realised ( ''high evidence, high agreement'' ).

There are also some contentious topics in the debate on accelerated low-carbon transitions. First, while acceleration is desirable to mitigate climate change, there is a risk that accelerating change too much may short-cut crucial experimentation and social and technological learning in ‘formative phases’ ( [[#Bento--2013|Bento 2013]] ; [[#Bento--2018b|Bento et al. 2018b]] ) and potentially lead to a pre-mature lock-in of solutions that later turn out to have negative impacts ( [[#Cowan--1990|Cowan 1990]] ; [[#Cowan--1991|Cowan 1991]] ) ( ''high evidence, medium agreement'' ).

Second, there is an ongoing debate about the most powerful leverage points and policies for speeding up change in social and technological systems. [[#Farmer--2019|Farmer et al. (2019)]] suggested ‘sensitive intervention points’ for low-carbon transitions, but do not quantify the impacts on transformations. [[#Grubler--2018|Grubler et al. (2018)]] proposed an end-user and efficiency-focused strategy to achieve rapid emission reductions and quantified their scenario with a leading IAM. However, discussion of the policy implications of such a strategy have only just started ( [[#Wilson--2019a|Wilson et al. 2019a]] ), suggesting an important area for future research.

The last contentious issue is if policies can or should substitute for lack of economic or social appeal of change or for technological risks. Many large-scale supply-side climate mitigation options, such as CCS or nuclear power, involve high technological risks, critically depend on a stable carbon price, and are controversial in terms of social and environmental impacts ( [[#Sovacool--2014|Sovacool et al. 2014]] ; [[#Smith--2016|Smith et al. 2016]] ; [[#Wilson--2020a|Wilson et al. 2020a]] ) ( ''high evidence'' , ''medium agreement'' ). There is continuing debate if and how policies could counterbalance these impacts in order to accelerate transitions ( [[#Nordhaus--2019|Nordhaus 2019]] ; [[#Lovins--2015|Lovins 2015]] ). Some demand-side options like large-scale public transport infrastructures such as ‘Hyperloop’ ( [[#Decker--2017|Decker et al. 2017]] ) or concepts such as the Asian Super Grid (maglev fast train coupled with superconducting electricity transmission networks) ( [[#AIGC--2017|AIGC 2017]] ) may face similar challenges, which adds weight and robustness to those demand-side options that are more decentralised, granular in scale, and provide potential tangible consumer benefits besides being low-carbon (like more efficient buildings and appliances, ‘soft’ urban mobility options (walking and cycling), digitalisation, among others ( [[#Grubler--2018|Grubler et al. 2018]] )).

A robust conclusion from this review is that there are no generic acceleration policies that are independent from the nature of what changes, by whom and how. Greater contextualisation and granularity in policy approaches is therefore important to address the challenges of rapid transitions towards zero-carbon systems ( ''high evidence'' , ''high agreement'' ).

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