About this Research Topic

Background

Technology is central to global efforts to fight climate change and adapt to its effects, which threaten livelihoods around the world. There is some cause for optimism: the cost of some key mitigation technologies, in particular solar- and wind-powered electricity, has dramatically declined in recent decades, defying most forecasts.

However, the global transition to clean technology raises a number of challenges. These include the risk of asset stranding, skills gaps in emerging sectors and job losses in declining ones, a surge in demand for critical minerals, and a rise in trade conflicts and protectionism associated with the proliferation of green industrial policies. At the same time, the need for adaptation is becoming more urgent as the impacts of existing warming are increasingly felt.

This Research Topic aims to inform both academic thinking and policymaking on the transition to climate technology. We want to shed light on questions such as:

• What climate-related challenges still lack viable technological solutions, and what are the barriers to technological advancements in those areas?
• What challenges could arise when scaling up existing solutions, and how can they be addressed?
• How do technological needs and challenges differ among regions and sectors, and how can policy account for these heterogeneities?
• Where do opportunities arise from the transition, and how can they be seized?
• Are current economic theories and methods adequate to tackle these questions, and if not, what alternative approaches could help?

In this Research Topic, we invite contributions that explore how technology may help reduce emissions and make our economy fit for a warmer world, as well as ones that reflect on the technological and economic limits to mitigation and adaptation. We welcome contributions employing a variety of methodological approaches and intellectual traditions. Papers may engage with the implications of scaling up specific solutions, the transition to climate technology more broadly, or the challenges which arise from the premature obsolescence of incumbent technological systems.

Contributions should broadly relate to one of the following themes:

Fostering clean innovation and the deployment of new technologies

We invite contributions that explore the drivers, barriers, and bottlenecks to innovation and diffusion of key clean and/or adaptation technologies.

Sector- and country-specific challenges

The global technological landscape is heterogeneous. We invite contributions which investigate the often unique challenges faced by particular economic sectors (such as heavy industry, heating and cooling, or electricity), countries, and regions.

Emerging global challenges

We invite contributions which study the underexplored challenges emerging in the context of the low-carbon technological transition. These include, but are not limited to, the rise in clean technology-related protectionism and trade disputes, and the transition’s implications for the mining industry—both in terms of the decline of fossil fuel sectors as well as the surge in demand for critical minerals.

Article types and fees

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Conceptual Analysis
• Data Report
• Editorial
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• ... View all formats

Articles that are accepted for publication by our external editors following rigorous peer review incur a publishing fee charged to Authors, institutions, or funders.

Article types

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Conceptual Analysis
• Data Report
• Editorial
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• Perspective
• Policy and Practice Reviews
• Policy Brief
• Review
• Study Protocol
• Systematic Review
• Technology and Code

Keywords: climate change, innovation, technology, mitigation, adaptation, net zero, low-carbon transition

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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