International Initiative on Climate Technology Policy

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Jonathan Lewis, Clean Air Task Force, October 2007.

In 2003 the EU issued a Directive promoting the use of biofuels and other renewable fuels for transport. The Directive sought/seeks to have biofuels account for 2% of EU transport fuels by 2005, 5.75% by 2010, and in a 2007 addendum, 10% by 2020.

The EU mandate was primarily driven by farm policy, to create new outlets for agricultural and forestry products, and to diversify rural economies. Reduced emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG), energy security, and improved environmental impacts were cited as ancillary benefits of the policies. However, due in part to global market forces and economic efficiencies in developing countries, the result is that the Directive has exacerbated some of the very problems it was designed to solve, driving up food prices, leading to increased deforestation in tropical countries, worsening global warming, and increasing imports of bio-oils.

This report from Clean Air Task Force examines these unintended consequences and highlights the need for updated, comprehensive tools to analyze the true net impacts of policies that increase biofuels use.

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Adiel N. Mbabu and Cosmas Ochieng, ISNAR Divsion Discussion Paper 8, October 2006.

This paper, prepared by the International Service for National Agriculture Research Divsion, discusses how impact-oriented agricultural research for development systems in Africa can be better organized and managed. Specifically, the paper puts forth the argument that achieving the development targets set by African leaders and the international community, for example, through the Millennium Development Goals, will be extremely difficult without a satisfactory re-orientation of the organization and management of African research for development systems. Such a re-orientation involves carefully linking the agricultural research agenda with national development priorities; improving coordination, interaction, interlinkages, partnerships, and networks among system agents—that is, agricultural research institutes, extension systems, higher education institutions, farmer organizations, civil society, and the private sector—and finding innovative financing and resourcing mechanisms to support the numerous components of the system.

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Link to the webpage of the Stern Review Report on the Economics of Climate Change on the HM Treasury web site.  

Sir Nicholas Stern, Head of the Government Economic Service and Adviser to the Government on the economics of climate change and development, delivers the most comprehensive review ever carried out on the economics of climate change. October 2006.

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December 2003, United Kingdom Department of Trade and Industry. DTI’s assessment of the UK’s innovation performance and strategy for innovation.