Green Growth Opportunities for Asia
Date
2017-01
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Abstract
Description
Asia has developed an expertise in innovation and has a comparative advantage in climate change mitigation technologies. Particular strengths include efficient lighting, photovoltaics, energy storage technologies, nuclear, and smart grids.
Using patent and trade data, this publication analyzes the potential of Asian economies to capture value from the design and export of low-carbon technologies, acknowledging that these are only two dimensions of a multidimensional low-carbon economy. It conducts country-level analysis to identify which technologies different countries can specialize in and potentially scale up. The work shows that, overall, Asia has an innovation specialization and revealed comparative advantage in climate change mitigation technologies. Particular strengths include efficient lighting, photovoltaics, and energy storage technologies. Further opportunities include nuclear and smart grids. However, within Asia, there are regional disparities, with countries such as the People’s Republic of China, Japan, and the Republic of Korea outperforming others. This paper highlights how the analytical framework it presents can be used to strategically inform environmental policy makers and concludes with an overview of the green growth policy tool kit.