Climate technology transfer in BRI era: needs, priorities, and barriers from receivers’ perspective

Technology is an instrument to build BRI relationships, mitigate the environmental and climate impacts of BRI projects, as well as to enhance environmental sustainability in the regions. This study aims to reposition China in global climate technology transfer in BRI era and to obtain initial knowledge on needs, priorities, and barriers from the receivers’ perspective. Focus group method with aid of questionnaire survey and follow-up face-to-face interviews was adopted to capture the major issues directly expressed by receivers from these countries. A total of 63 valid questionnaires were collected, and 13 respondents were face-to-face interviewed. The results confirmed that energy and agriculture were the most prioritized sectors for mitigation and adaptation in the developing countries alongside OBOR. The prioritized technologies for mitigation included cogeneration, solar photovoltaic, and biomass/biogas electricity. Irrigation, conservation agriculture, and soil management were prioritized for adaptation in agricultural sector, and water recycling and reuse, source water protection, and urban drainage management in water resource sector. Technology cost during installation and operation was stressed as the most important factor constraining the application and diffusion of climate technologies. But communication including language, information, and ways of communication, was also identified as an important factor. This implied that the conventional climate technology transfer need adapt to changing contexts of BRI and be complemented with innovative approaches involving multi-actors in different phases of climate technology development. Due to the limited representativeness of the sample, the results can hardly be generalized to all the countries, but raised interesting topics for future researches.