Global trends in the invention and diffusion of climate change mitigation technologies

Abstract

Increasing the development and diffusion of climate change mitigation technologies on a globalscale is critical to reaching net-zero emissions. We analyse over a quarter million high-value inventions patented from 1995 to 2017 by inventors located in 170 countries in all major climate change mitigation technologies. Our analysis shows an annual growth rate of 10 percent from 1995 to 2012 in these high-value inventions. Yet, from 2013 to 2017, the growth rate of these inventions has fallen by around 6 percent annually, likely driven by declining fossil fuel prices, low carbon prices, and increasing technological maturity for some technologies, such as solar PV. Invention has remained highly concentrated geographically over the last decade, with inventors in Germany, Japan, and the US accounting for more than half of global inventions, and the top 10 countries for almost 90%. Except for inventors in China, most middle-income economies have not caught up and remain less specialised in lowcarbon technologies than high-income economies. This underscores the need for more technology transfers to low-and middle-income economies, where most of the future CO2 emissions increases are set to occur.

Impact of Accelerated Stress Tests on the Cathodic Catalytic Layer in a Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) Fuel Cell Studied by Identical Location Scanning Electron Microscopy

“…Our society needs to move away from fossil-fuel-based energy sources to renewable sources of energy, such as solar and wind power, and switch to sustainable carbon-emission free alternatives for energy storage and fuels such as hydrogen-based alternatives. , Two promising technologies in these areas are fuel cells and electrolyzers, both of which are under intense research to make them more efficient for commercial use. Hydrogen can be generated by electricity from renewable energy sources by electrolyzers and can later be stored and converted back to electricity in fuel cells. , Proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs), which are based on acidic membranes, produce electricity by oxidizing H 2 by O 2 to produce electricity and pure water, without CO 2 emissions.…”

The impact of the digital economy on carbon emission intensity: Evidence from China

“…In addition, it is important to reduce the carbon emissions of the construction industry (Dong et al, 2023). Buildings are considered the last mile toward the carbon-neutral century, and studying the decarbonization potential of commercial building operations has become another mainstream topic (Probst et al, 2021;Xiang et al, 2022).…”

Tracking artificial intelligence in climate inventions with patent data

“…Besides variation in national patent laws, other factors could need to be controlled when investigating and comparing patenting trends. Such differences include technical expertise and specialization in countries and industries 33 .…”

“…The resulting classification codes provide the primary means to group patents and make them searchable: patent offices need to examine the prior art to judge whether claimed inventions are sufficiently novel before granting patents. Patents have previously been used as a data source and a proxy to study trends in both AI 1,2,30 and climate technologies [31][32][33][34] separately. Here I combined classification data for climate inventions and AI technologies to find patents that are both.…”