Researchers distil twenty years of lessons from clean energy funding into six ‘guiding principles’. They argue that governments must eschew constant reinventions and grant scientists greater influence before our “window of opportunity” to avert climate change closes.
In a recent Nature article, researchers from the universities of Cambridge, Minnesota, Harvard and Securing America’s Future Energy (Washington), have set out guidelines for investment in world-changing energy innovation based on an analysis of the last twenty years of “what works” in clean energy research programs. Their six simple “guiding principles” also include the need to channel innovation into the private sector through formal tech transfer programmes, and to think in terms of lasting knowledge creation rather than ‘quick win’ potential when funding new projects.
“As the window of opportunity to avert dangerous climate change narrows, we urgently need to take stock of policy initiatives around the world that aim to accelerate new energy technologies and stem greenhouse gas emissions,” said Laura Diaz Anadon, University of Cambridge.
Click here for the University of Cambridge article.
Click here for the Nature article.
Image credit: Riccardo Annandale