Technology readiness levels (TRL) have received increasing recognition throughout academia, industry and policy-making as a tool for evaluating and communicating a technology's maturity.Conventional scales are unspecific to technologies as they aim at evaluating and comparing technologies combining different fields. Hence, they present vague descriptions which leave considerable room for interpretation and subjective choices. For the chemical industry, adaptions and specific criteria are needed for more comprehensible TRL ratings. This paper specifies the nine conventional TRLs for the chemical industry as: Idea, Concept, Proof of concept, Preliminary process development, Detailed process development, Pilot trials, Demonstration and full-scale engineering, Commissioning, and Production. Adjusted descriptions and additional criteria with detailed indicators are presented, depicting the logical progression of a typical chemical innovation in the phases of applied research, development and deployment. The specified TRLs facilitate evaluation and communication of a technology's maturity and substantially improve the basis for data availability-based assessment.Issuing institution Purpose and background of the scale US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) 2,6,7 Space technology planning as a measurement system that "supports assessments of the maturity of a particular technology and the consistent comparison of maturity between different types of technology" 2 US Department of Defense (US DoD) 13 Focus on "critical technologies" 13 , used in 'Major Defense Acquisition Programs', evaluates the degree of risk associated with each TRL and recommends mitigation measures US Department of Energy (US DoE) 8 Based on NASA and US DoD, adapted to DoE needs, incorporates scale of testing, system fidelity and environment (waste) as criteria in the description, provides appendix with questions for general TRL rating and detailed questions for critical technical elements US Department of Health and Human Services (US HHS) 9Biomedical adaption: designed for evaluating the maturity of medical countermeasure products (drugs and biologics)European Commission, horizon 2020 framework

Approximately 40% of the world’s population lived in China, India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan in 2021. These countries were responsible for about 36% of the world’s CO2 emissions in 2018. Economically, in the same year they represented 20% of the global Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Considering the population, the CO2 emissions, and the share of their GDP in world economy, actions in these countries regarding fighting climate change and promoting low-carbon energy transformations have global consequences and are key to realization of 2015 Paris Agreement and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (e.g., SDG7 and SDG13). In this article, we review the current energy situation, low-carbon energy targets and challenges to low-carbon energy transformation in each country and provide an overview of general trends and key factors in this transformation. The assessment shows that the above countries are not on the path to achieve the Paris Agreement target. CO2 emissions and the use of fossil fuels are still high in these countries. However, general trends such as decreasing costs of renewables, a decreasing dependency on fossil fuels imports, additional liquidity for energy infrastructure due to fuel costs savings, and remuneration schemes for renewables are all promising for decarbonisation efforts and low-carbon energy transformation.