Technology and technological change are relevant to all aspects of global climate change, ranging from problem identification through regime formation, monitoring and verification of commitments, evasion of agreed upon rules, data management, public participation, mitigation, adaptation, and research. The world as a whole spends an estimated $400 to $500 billion a year on research and development of science and technology, including both public and private sources. Most of that is designed to develop technology to meet particular goals. What are the ways of stimulating more active and systematic uses of technology that may be relevant in this arena?

Technological possibilities can be explored in three categories:

1. existing technologies, especially those developed for very different purposes, such as military or medical applications;

2. technologies that could be imagined as developments in the near to mid-term future; and

3. the possibility of wholly new, presently unknown technological capabilities in the future.

Methods of stimulating desirable technological identification and development include:

• focused R&D (e. g., energy technology efficiency, satellite observation)
• command and control standards (e.g., zero-emission autos)
• regulations (e. g., auto miles/gal., sulfur stack emissions)
• other market incentives/rewards (e.g., patents, guaranteed markets)
• international approaches such as
• cooperative R&D (e. g., International Geophysical Year, International Geosphere-Biosphere Program, fusion energy),
• agreed international regulations (e. g., tanker hulls, fish limits)
• trade restrictions that create market incentives for technological development (e. g., dolphin-friendly tuna fishing gear)
• funding for development of technology for low-income markets ( e. g., drugs for endemic third-world disease)
• exploration of exogenous technology (e. g., military, medical, consumer technologies)

Some issues associated with application of technology were identified:

Regarding transfer of technology:

• selection of appropriate and needed technologies
• requirements for successful transfer (capacity-building)
• requirements for (and value of) local R&D
• who owns the technology?
• who pays for transfer, purchase or operation?
• roles of private sector, public sector
• distribution questions (e. g., who benefits in recipient country)
• role of international institutions
• position on recipient country agenda
• possibility of continued technological dependence
• effects on trade such as competitiveness and non-tariff-barriers

Regarding management of global technologies:

• national or international ownership (e. g., Intelsat versus Global Positioning System)
• policy and decision process; who has a voice in, or determines, design and operation
• sensitivity of information: security/privacy issues
• system biased or neutral in its operations, effects or benefits, economic or other dependence on system operation ( e. g., vulnerability to disruption)
• control of data stream, its reduction, and its use

Other issues:

• who carries out assessments, forecasts?
• where does liability lie for incorrect forecasts?
• over-valuation of computer outputs, models
• how to protect against technological incompetence?

One approach to identification of technologies likely to be fruitful is to develop a set of high priority needs relevant to climate change and then to scan existing or potential technologies for possible applications to these needs. Examples of such high priority needs that technological developments could help address in the international environmental arena are:

1. Technologies that would make possible remote monitoring where on-sight measurement is now required, or for measurement of presently opaque or inaccessible environments, e. g., monitoring of fish catch on a ship-by-ship basis, tracking sources of illicit use of fertilizer, and observing exhaust plumes to identify constituents or violations of agreements.

2. Remote sensing of inaccessible or difficult environments, e. g., plankton density below ocean surface, monitoring of fish stocks and migration, and tracking transboundary pollution from low-level sources.

3. Identifying reliably and rapidly items in trade from proscribed species, e. g., ivory from Kenya or South Africa.

4. Monitoring of behavior at the level of the individual, e. g., monitoring of auto exhaust or speed on real-time basis.

5. Technologies for specific local or national situations, e.g., low-cost weather and climate observation to determine local situations and impacts, low-cost emission-control or cleansing technologies for low-income applications, and rapid detection and location of gas pipeline leaks.

6. Specific mitigation technology goals, e. g., replenishment of the ozone layer, safe and proliferation-resistant nuclear technologies, waste disposal technologies involving novel approaches or presently ignored geographical areas, geoengineering for mitigating effects of greenhouse gas emissions.

Discussions should not only focus on technologies, but should also consider some of the issues associated with technological development and applications, such as the social/political/economic impediments to the use of technology, the differing role of and impact on developing countries, the roles of international institutions, the various routes for development of technology, and the problems to be anticipated from technological externalities. It would also be useful to take a longer look ahead, to ask what environmentally-related issues are likely to be dominant concerns ( e.g., drinking water) in, say, 50 to 75 years, and what technological measures ought to be considered now to prepare for them.

The appropriate group to discuss this issue would obviously have to be quite broad. It should include some imaginative scientists and engineers, able to range outside their disciplines, economists familiar both with technological development issues and the role of technology in climate change assessment, political scientists who deal with science/technology-related policy issues and international environmental questions, possibly a historian of technology who has a deep understanding of the historical sweep of technology-induced change, and individuals from developing countries (in any of the above disciplines) who can deal with technology-related development and environmental questions.

The result of such discussions could provide specific ideas of applicable technology, institutional suggestions to improve the present process for identifying technologies and influencing technology goals, and a better understanding of how technology relates to both environmental and development objectives.

In group discussion, many interesting issues arose including:

• How can we avoid getting locked into technologies that result in half the world using one the other half using another of two incompatible technologies (like VHS and Beta formats for video tape)?
• How can we avoid technologies that turn out to be mistakes ( e. g., DDT, CFCs, etc.)? Some suggested that almost all technologies turn out to have some unexpected and undesirable consequences, such as leaded gasoline.
• Data storage media, including the current electronic media, are not permanent. Physical deterioration is one problem and changing methods of reading data are another. As technologies change, older ones become obsolete, parts are no longer available, etc.

It was suggested that wider public participation, facilitated by the use of the Internet, could get more information on national plans or relevant data to more people in a decentralized way and this might stimulate new technological ideas from many quarters.

The transfer of data and technology from the intelligence community to others was suggested as a means of bringing technology to environmental uses. For example, declassification of environmental data is allowing the study of the thickness of polar ice over time to detect change. The acoustic thermometry experiments now beginning to be used to detect changes in ocean temperatures have been made possible by the use of old defense technology. This is the proverbial beating of swords into ploughshares.

The Russian-American Space Station is an example of both technology transfer and international cooperation bringing countries together to develop environmentally useful technology. U. S. technology policy is largely focused on competitiveness. What are the comparative benefits of cooperation versus competition?

The attitude of the rich countries is that technologies are privately owned and countries can't transfer them. There is also the problem of phased-out technologies from the developed countries being sold for money to developing countries. And if developing countries buy the new technologies they are indirectly paying for the problems created by the old technologies which were used and scrapped by the developed world. Are new rules for property rights needed? There is a need to talk about these issues at the international level.

Sometimes it is not technology itself that is the problem but other related issues. For example, for the use of photovoltaics, battery technology is really more the problem. With energy efficient lighting technologies, the technologies are fine, the problems lie in implementation strategies and management issues.

Drinking water is currently the world's most significant environmental problem, especially in Africa. An organized effort is needed to develop alternative drinking water supply and delivery technologies.

Defining technology as capacity, technology can't be transferred, only built. Technology cooperation rather than technology transfer is one suggestion. What is possible? Much technology is in the public domain and can be acquired for money. What are the roles for government versus the private sector? A collective effort by the private sector in the public domain to disseminate and promote technologies and develop an export market in environmental goods and services is needed. There should be standards for this though and it should not stress the current system; it needs to be able to be absorbed. We should be able to have economic growth and environmental protection hand in hand.