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CLIMATE CHANGE | ||||||
| 9.3 Barriers to mitigation measures Greenhouse gas mitigation measures are compounded by several barriers inherent to the process of development. Sustainable development in a participatory framework can minimize these barriers, but the inequitable distribution of income and wealth forms a core feature of barriers to effective implementation of any type of intervention, and those related to climate change are no exception. For any policy decision on GHG reduction any individual country can choose from a large set of possible policies, measures, and instruments to limit domestic GHG emissions. These can be categorized into market based instruments, regulatory instruments, and voluntary agreements of which some may fall into the category of market based instrument. Also for any country and more particularly for the developing countries, domestic structural reforms and policies on trade liberalization and liberalization of energy markets have a great impact on measures that acts as barriers to GHG reduction or enhance their sequestration by sinks. These policies coupled with macroeconomics, market oriented reforms, set the framework in which more specific climate policies would be implemented. During the 1990s several countries including India and China implemented drastic market oriented reforms that have had important effects on energy use and energy efficiency, and therefore on GHG emissions. Another major barrier in climate change mitigation is the transfer of environmentally sound technologies from developed to developing countries. Article 4.5 and other relevant provisions of the UNFCCC defines the nature and scope of technology transfer, which include environmentally sound and economically viable technologies and know-how conducive to mitigating and adapting to climate change. An effective transfer of technology requires fulfilling three major criteria viz. the technology holder should be willing to transfer the technology, the technology must fit into the demand of the recipient country and the transfer must be made at reasonable cost to the recipient. The IPCC Special Report on technology Transfer (IPCC, 2000) identifies various important barriers that could impede environmental technology transfer, such as : · lack of data, information, and knowledge, especially on emerging
technologies;
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