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Recent international climate agreements ask for an acceleration of innovation in climate change mitigation technologies (CCMTs). To design and plan efficient and effective actions, evidence is needed on what has been achieved up to now in terms of technological development. This paper provides an objective and evidence-based overview of the status of global inventiveness in CCMTs. Thanks to a detailed methodological approach, able to capture and exploit the information potential of patent data, this paper proposes a comprehensive analysis to evaluate the global inventive activity. Several indicators are defined and used to measure trajectories of technology development, globalisation of inventions, and networks of collaborations. The study focuses on four major international economies: Europe, China, Japan and USA. Findings show that these major economies have substantially advanced their inventive activity, but continuous and common effort is needed to combat climate change. In particular, the emergence of China as a major economy has been very relevant, since it has opened important market opportunities for incumbent players, but has also introduced competitive restrictions. The degree of internationalisation of CCMT-related activity has increased, as well as the number of collaborations among countries. The comparative analysis of two renewable technologies, solar PV and wind, shows that international inventiveness is technology-dependent and reflects country specialisation. Based on this evidence, international climate agreements need to be further supported to foster clean energy innovation, thereby shaping international collaboration and boosting positive competition.

This paper examines the organizational arrangements for technology supply in solar photovoltaic projects in the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). It shows that while lower middle-income countries typically import solar PV equipment into CDM projects, China, India and Thailand have begun to use new organizational arrangements for technology transfer which reflect the overall industry maturity in the solar PV sectors in these countries. This has great potential for long-term climate change mitigation efforts. However, the initiation of these new organizational arrangements often preceded the supply of technology into CDM projects. This raises important questions about the role of CDM in spearheading the development of technological capabilities required for sustainable development. The paper uses these findings to add to the literature about technology in CDM and to the wider policy debates over the future of the global climate regime. Technology transfer does not become less important as developing countries' capabilities mature, but the nature of technology transfer changes over time. This suggests a need to differentiate between countries at different levels of development. Lower middle-income countries may have greater needs for building technological capabilities whereas cooperative activities may be suitable for upper middle-income countries that already have capabilities to address climate change. (C) 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The climate change is the global issue widely concerned by the international society, which is related to the overall situation of China’s economic and social development. This paper illustrates the international mechanism of adapting to climate change, discriminates the connotation of response planning, including the connotation of mitigation planning, and the connotation of adaptation planning. This paper also establishes the planning research framework regarding the response to climate change, including the planning research framework regarding the climate change mitigation, and the adapting to climate change. In addition, this paper also introduces the actions and measures of major countries to address the climate change, defines China’s strategy and target for addressing climate change, and points out how to combat the challenges of climate change in China. Besides, this paper further illustrates China’s key tasks of scientific and technical actions for addressing climate change, and provides the suggestions regarding China’s response to climate change.

China’s commitment to the UNFCCC to peak its emissions by 2030, or sooner, signaled a long anticipated shift in China’s model of development with far reaching consequences. Cities in China, and particularly the residential sector in cities, will be charged with making significant reductions in emissions growth even as rates of urbanization continue to climb. Focusing on Beijing and Shanghai, this paper carries out a measures-based economic analysis of low carbon investment opportunities in the residential sector. Results find significant opportunity: between 2015 and 2030, BAU levels of CO2 emissions could be reduced by 10.2% in Beijing and 6.8% in Shanghai with the adoption of economically attractive low carbon measures. While these headline results underline the case for low carbon investment in the residential sectors of these megacities in China, a closer analysis provides insights for understanding the economics of decarbonisation in cities more generally.

The use of harvested wood products (HWPs) influences the carbon flux. China is both the major producer and trader of HWP, so estimating the carbon stock change of China&rsquo, s HWP is important to help curb climate change. Accurate reporting and accounting of carbon flows in the HWP pool is needed to meet greenhouse gas monitoring and climate change mitigation objectives under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Paris Agreement. This study applied production approach (PA) to estimate the carbon stock change of China&rsquo, s HWP from 1900 to 2016. During the estimating period, the carbon stock of HWP in use and deposed at solid waste disposal sites (SWDS) were 649.2 Teragrams Carbon (TgC) (346.8 TgC in wood-based panels, 216.7 TgC in sawnwood and 85.7 TgC in paper &amp, paperboard) and 72.6 TgC, respectively. The carbon amount of annual domestic harvest HWP varied between 87.6 and 118.7 TgC. However, the imported carbon inflow increased significantly after the 1990s and reached 47.6 TgC in 2016, accounting for 46% of the domestic harvest of that year. China has great mitigation potential from HWP and use of this resource should be considered in future strategies to address climate change.

This paper provides an overview of China’s climate mitigation policy related to the forestry sector, with a special focus on the development of carbon forests which are established to mitigate climate change. A total of 3.5 million ha of carbon forest were planted in the past decade. In recent years, the number of Voluntary Emission Reduction forest carbon projects has increased rapidly. The main challenges for future development of carbon forests under market mechanisms include increasing costs, uncertainty in the future supply and demand for China-certified emission reduction, and potential disputes between households and project developers.