Mission-Oriented Policies and Technological Sovereignty: The Case of Climate Mitigation Technologies

Abstract

The rapid decarbonization of the global economy represents the main challenge for the next decades to combat climate change. The European Union (EU) is leading the negotiation process under the Paris Agreement and recently approved an ambitious unilateral mitigation strategy known as the European Green Deal (EGD). In this paper, we present a novel approach based on the analysis of patent data related to climate change and mitigation technologies (CCMTs) with the aim of describing the evolutionary pattern of the EU in green technology. Based on our analysis, two of our main results deserve attention. First, at the global level, the pace of generation of new green technologies as measured by patent data is slowing down in recent years. This trend, if not inverted, casts some doubts on the economic sustainability of the ambitious environmental targets set by the EC. Second, the current EU technological positioning with respect to green areas appears to be problematic in terms of technological sovereignty, with serious risks of potential technological dependences from other countries. Given the radical technological shift required for the implementation of a full decarbonization pattern, the EU must realize a mission-oriented technology policy with additional and directed investments to ensure technological independence, together with a low-carbon and energy secure economy.