Editing IPCC:AR6/WGIII/Chapter-16 (section)

=== 16.6.4 Climate Change, Sustainable Development and Innovation ===

<div id="h2-31-siblings" class="h2-siblings"></div>

This section gives a synthesis of this chapter on innovation and technology development and transfer, connecting it to sustainable development.

In conjunction with other enabling conditions, technological innovation can support system transitions to limit warming, help shift development pathways, and bring about new and improved ways of delivering goods and services that are essential to human well-being ( ''high confidence'' ). At the same time, however, innovation can result in trade-offs that undermine progress on mitigation and towards other SDGs. Trade-offs include negative externalities, such as environmental impacts and social inequalities, rebound effects leading to lower net emission reductions or even increases in emissions, and increased dependency on foreign knowledge and providers ( ''high confidence'' ). Digitalisation, for example, holds both opportunity for emission reduction and emission-saving behaviour change, but at the same time causes significant environmental, social and greenhouse gas (GHG) impacts ( ''hig'' ''h confidence'' ).

A systemic view of innovation that takes into account the roles of actors, institutions, and their interactions, can contribute to enhanced understanding of processes and outcomes of technological innovation, and to interventions and arrangements that can help innovation. It can also play a role in clarifying the synergies and trade-offs between technological innovation and the SDGs. Effective governance and policy, implemented in an inclusive, responsible and holistic way, could make innovation policy more effective, and avoid and minimise misalignments between climate change mitigation, technological innovation, and other societal goals ( ''medium evidence'' , ''hi'' ''gh agreement'' ).

A special feature is the dynamics of transitions. Like other enabling conditions, technological innovation plays a balancing role – by inhibiting change as innovation strengthens incumbent technologies and practices – and a reinforcing role, by allowing new technologies and practices to disrupt the existing socio-technical regimes ( ''high confidence'' ). Appropriate innovation policies can help to better organise innovation systems, while other policies (technology push and demand pull) can provide suitable resources and incentives to support and guide these innovation systems towards societally-desirable outcomes, ensure the innovations are deployed at scale, and direct these dynamics towards system transitions for climate change mitigation, and also towards addressing other SDGs. This means taking into account the full lifecycle or value chain as well as analysis of synergies and trade-offs.

Against this backdrop, international cooperation on technological innovation is one of the enablers of climate action in developing countries on both mitigation and adaptation ( ''high confidence'' ). Experiences with international cooperation on technology development and deployment suggest that such activities are most effective when they: are approached as ‘innovation cooperation’ that engenders a holistic, systemic view of innovation requirements; are an equitable partnership between donors and recipients; and develop local innovation capabilities ( ''medium evidence'' , ''h'' ''igh agreement'' ).

Chapter 17, in particular [[IPCC:Wg3:Chapter:Chapter-17#17.4|Section 17.4]] , connects technological innovation with other enabling conditions, such as behaviour, institutional capacity and multilevel governance, to clarify the actions that could be taken, holistically and in conjunction, to strengthen and accelerate the system transitions required to limit warming to be in line with the Paris Agreement and to place countries in sustainable development pathways.

<div id="16.7" class="h1-container"></div>

<span id="knowledge-gaps"></span>