This chapter addresses the challenge of how sustainable development and climate goals could be aligned through technology transfers. It explains how this is an opportunity for maximising the benefits from investments at a time of constrained resources but large-scale low-emission technology transfers for mitigation and adaptation. This could facilitate developing countries’ efforts to achieve Millennium Development Goals. The chapter reviews the development of technology transfer under the UNFCCC and the updated Technology Needs Assessment (TNA) process. How technologies and measures can be identified for achieving both climate and development goals using the new TNA process involving developing country stakeholders is described as a first stage in developing strategies and action plans for large-scale sector transformations.

In this chapter, the complexity of the technology transfer and innovation process is discussed with the need to not only deliver technologies but also facilitate successful adoption through supportive activities to overcome barriers in the system. The next challenge, therefore, is to create the low greenhouse gas emission and climate-resilient strategies and action plans to accelerate innovation for sustainable development on the scale and timescale required for achieving climate and development goals. This chapter describes the TNA process that enables identification of the system blockages or market barriers based on characterising the existing system or market. Stakeholders can then generate the activities for overcoming these weaknesses to form a strategy for innovation of a technology. When taken together with other priority technologies in a sector, the identified innovation activities can form a sector strategy, or when scaling up further, form a national strategy. Action plans for implementation provide the basis for the costs, timing, responsibilities and monitoring, verification and reporting as a basis for funding allocation and management.

Recent developments in the negotiations have shown an increasing focus on developing strategies for meeting climate goals in the context of countries’ sustainable development. Provisions included for that in the Copenhagen Accords and Cancun Agreements are low-emission development strategies (LEDS), nationally appropriate mitigation actions (NAMAs) and national adaptation plans (NAPs). In addition, the updated TNA process supports formulation of strategies with action plans. This chapter discusses possible interlinkages between these provisions as well as with the several climate policy pillars under the Convention, such as Technology Mechanism, Cancun Adaptation Framework, Capacity-Building Framework and Financial Mechanism. The chapter addresses the challenge of how to rationalise these current directions in climate policy making. It provides recommendations for the efficient operation of these pillars by suggesting areas where activities can be integrated so that duplication and wastage of resources can be avoided.

Recent studies have shown an increasing urgency to address climate change and its impacts on ecosystems with the scale of action requiring no less than ‘a green revolution.’ A review of the climate negotiations and recent developments within the Cancun Agreements identifies five main challenges to progress. In this first chapter, the need for increased engagement of developing countries in global climate coalitions for action is discussed. It has become clear that climate policy making and sustainable development policies are increasingly becoming interlinked, especially in developing countries, where climatic changes affect achieving development goals and where climate action could improve energy access with low greenhouse gas emitting technologies for poverty alleviation. The challenge is to place the climate negotiations in this wider context of sustainability, equity and social change.

The important challenges are listed below and have formed the subject of each of the chapters in the book. This chapter summarises the key insights gained from the earlier chapters and indicates some possible ways forward. There are no simple solutions and real progress will involve the political will commitment to change, many stakeholders and networks working flexibly together as well as sustained effort and long term finance.

The latest scientific knowledge on climate change indicates that higher greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere through unchecked emissions will provoke severe climate change and ocean acidifi

The clean development mechanism (CDM) has the objective to support developing countries in achieving a sustainable development path, while at the same time assisting industrialized countries in achieving their Kyoto Protocol commitments. Actual practice shows that CDM technology transfers are largely focused on reducing GHG emissions at lowest cost and less on the domestic development needs and priorities of the host countries. This paper discusses an approach to facilitate low-carbon energy technology transfer compatible with the energy development needs and priorities of developing countries. The results reported here are concerned with the relation between the transfer of low-carbon energy technologies and the perceived needs and priorities for low-carbon technologies in the country context. The study has provided insights on improving the CDM for technology transfer in accordance with host countries’ development priorities and has been applied to Chile, China, Israel, Kenya and Thailand. It forms the first stage of an overall approach for facilitating low-carbon technology transfer under the UNFCCC. The second stage of the study is reported elsewhere [ENTTRANS, 2008. Promoting sustainable energy technology transfers through the CDM: Converting from a theoretical concept to practical action. Final report of specific support action under EU FP-6, January 2006–December 2007. Contract 022673, co-ordination: Foundation JIN, Groningen, The Netherlands, www.enttrans.org].

This article was submitted without an abstract, please refer to the full-text PDF file.

The purpose of technology transfer under the UNFCCC Article 4.5 is to “…promote, facilitate, and finance as appropriate the transfer of, or access to, environmentally sound technologies and know how to other Parties particularly Developing Country parties to enable them to implement the provisions of the Convention.” The key challenge in this respect is that low-carbon sustainable technologies need to be adopted both by developed as well as developing countries. However, this paper focuses on the process of technology transfer to developing countries to allow them to move quickly to environmentally sound and sustainable practices, institutions and technologies. In the above framework, this paper reviews key aspects of technology transfer from a range of perspectives in the literature and discusses insights from this literature for the transfer and innovation process needed to reduce global vulnerability to climate change in the context of current international activities based on the research undertaken by the EU sponsored ENTTRANS project.

The perception of the project-based mechanisms has varied since their inception under the name of Activities Implemented Jointly (AIJ) to their form under the Kyoto Protocol of Joint Implementation (JI) and the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). AIJ projects of course still exist under the Marrakech Accords. The controversy surrounding the concept of emissions trading and the need for purely domestic reduction actions has not really abated. The role of JI and the CDM and of AIJ is therefore interesting in the way these mechanisms have alternately been propelled along by their role as market mechanisms in achieving a low carbon future ‘at least cost to society’ and then reined in by those concerned that the priority should be domestic action. New arguments have appeared with time. The environmental integrity of the reductions achieved by project based mechanisms is now seen as a key selling point in an international market beset by ‘hot air’. Thus the popularity of the project mechanisms is now being propelled along by concerns on environmental integrity but then limited by problems with increasing transaction costs due to the complexity of the system to ensure that integrity. The pressure to reduce transaction costs for the project mechanisms has led to investigation of possible simplified and standardised procedures for baselines for the project mechanisms. This paper therefore traces the evolution of the project mechanisms and some of the latest developments in carbon accounting for reductions for large and small-scale projects as well as looking at the implications for projects under the EU and UK emissions trading schemes.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1065/lca2006.04.009

The European Union EU project PROBASE hasexplored a range of possible multi projectstandardised benchmarks as a way ofencouraging projects under Joint Implementation (JI) and the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM)by minimising transaction costs. The aim ofthis paper is to examine the environmentalintegrity of the use of standardisedbaselines and to explore the role ofadditionality. The environmental integritydepends on the uncertainty in emissionreductions, which was estimated bygenerating scenario baselines and comparingthese with the standardised baselines. Thishas allowed a comparison of selected multiproject baselines with the envelope ofuncertainty on the reductions. The projectsincluded a range of electricity supply,heat sector, cogeneration and methane(CH$_{4}$) projects in different countries. Theanalysis showed that the key uncertaintieswere in the technology fuel selection inthe baseline, the continued additionalityof the project emission reductions,uncertainties in some project emissions(e.g. spinning reserve emissions for wind)and data uncertainties. The effect on theestimation of reductions was in the range±12% to ±46% for the electricityprojects and from ±19% to ±57%for the heat and Combined Heat and Power CHP sector projects.Comparison with the envelope of uncertaintyfor the range of projects showed that multiproject electricity sector baselines whichhave been weighted or use high technologyperformance benchmarks (e.g. Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development OECD)can provide conservative estimates buttheir general nature can lead to variationsbetween countries. We would recommend thatthe country-specific context must be takeninto account so that standardised baselinesfor the electricity sector are generated onthe basis of country specificcharacteristics, the project type, andwhether it provides new or existing demand.The conservative scenario produced shouldthen be weighted. Whereas weightings havebeen applied to account for uncertaintiesor to bias towards renewables, we havesuggested a weighting factor of 25% on theelectricity baseline for large projectsbased on an analysis of the effect ofnon-additionality on emission reductionuncertainty. For heat projects, theappropriate benchmark is a technology/fuelbenchmark which is deemed relevant for theheat sector in that (part of the) country.Again we suggest that a weighted sectorbaseline is required to take account of theuncertainties. These recommendations applyto large projects only for a 10-yearcrediting lifetime.

The effects of confinement and exercise on the stress response of the spiny damselfish Acanthochromis polyacanthus were investigated in a laboratory stock of fish. Cultured spiny damselfish had basal plasma cortisol values (<16 ng ml −1 ) similar to those found in wild fish, and basal plasma glucose and lactate levels that were similar to those found in other teleosts. Plasma cortisol concentrations increased in response to stress with a latency period of 5–10 min. Removal of the stressor resulted in partial recovery of cortisol levels by 24 h. Plasma glucose levels increased in response to stress in all experiments with significant increases occurring within 15 min of the imposition of stress. Elevations in plasma glucose concentrations were not initially reflected in changes in liver or muscle glycogen content, with significant reductions in liver glycogen concentrations only occurring in response to extended periods of stress. In contrast to many temperate species, plasma lactate concentrations did not consistently increase in response to stress, suggesting that the stress response in spiny damselfish is not strongly characterized by anaerobiosis.

Cell division normally follows the completion of each round of chromosome replication in Escherichia coli. Transcription of the essential cell division genes clustered at the mra region is shown here to depend on continuing chromosomal DNA replication. After chromosome replication was blocked by either nalidixic acid treatment or thymine starvation, the transcription of these cell division genes was repressed significantly. This suggests a way in which cell division is controlled by chromosome replication.

Increasing FtsZ induces the formation of minicells at cell poles but does not increase the frequency or timing of central divisions. A coordinate increase in both FtsZ and FtsA, however, increases the frequency of both polar and central divisions.

ABSTRACT Deletion of ftsK results in the inhibition of cell division, but this inhibition can be reversed by a plasmid carrying only the first ∼17% of ftsK. The division block can be suppressed in most mutants by deletion of dacA, which codes for the d-alanine:d-alanine carboxypeptidase PBP5, or in all mutants by overexpression of ftsN. Overexpression of ftsK inhibits cell division and the formation of FtsZ rings. This division block is not due to the induction of either the SOS or the heat shock regulons.

In the rod-shaped cells of E. coli, chromosome segregation takes place immediately after replication has been completed. A septum then forms between the two sister chromosomes. In the absence of certain membrane proteins, cells grow instead as large, multichromosomal spheres that divide successively in planes that are at right angles to one another. Although multichromosomal, the spherical cells cannot be maintained as heterozygotes. These observations imply that, in these mutants, each individual chromosome gives rise to a separate clone of descendant cells. This suggests a model in which sites for cell division form between pairs of sister chromosomes at the time of segregation, but are not used in spherical cells until further rounds of replication have taken place, thus ensuring clonal ('hierarchical') segregation of chromosomes into progeny cells. The role of the morphogenetic membrane proteins is to convert the basically spherical cell into a cylinder that is able to divide as soon as replication and segregation have been completed, and thus to maximise the number of viable cells per genome.

Regulation of the eukaryotic cell cycle involves calcium- and lipid-stimulated kinases acting on cytoskeletal structures; there are two principal reasons for supposing that the regulation of the prokaryotic cell cycle may be fundamentally the same. First, evidence for their fundamental difference is still missing and, second, evidence for prokaryotic homologues of eukaryotic cell cycle proteins is accumulating. Such proteins include those involved in calcium regulation, such as calmodulin and calcium-dependent kinases, and those involved in lipid regulation, such as protein kinase C. Proteins identified as candidates for cytoskeletal elements now include MukB, a putative contractile protein responsible for chromosome segregation, and FtsZ, the key constituent of the "cytokinetic" ring. These similarities allow the application of powerful prokaryotic model systems to one of biology's most profound, complex and urgent problems: the nature of the regulation of the eukaryotic cell cycle.