Unlocking Climate Innovation: From Global Commitments to Local Green Technology Deployment

As the world demands urgent action to reverse the impacts of climate change, we must change the way we live, work, produce, and consume. Leading a business at this time can be challenging. Consumers and investors increasingly demand sustainability and green innovation, and you're navigating evolving environmental regulations. Green technology innovators also face many challenges. You need to find business partners interested in environmental impact to support and fund your development. You need to bring your innovations to market. And above all, you need to identify and connect with customers who will use your solutions to make the world greener. WIPO GREEN brings together innovators and business or government leaders seeking environmentally friendly solutions. We share technology offers and demands, we support growth, and we connect businesses, finance, and governments. The WIPO Green Database is a free online marketplace for sustainable technology. The platform allows those looking for solutions to describe their needs. It's a business intelligence hub and a place for the world's green innovators to showcase their technologies. Platform users can communicate directly with other companies, institutions, and governments who need or offer innovative solutions. WIPO Green's acceleration projects help match technology solutions with environmental challenges. Our teams on the ground identify demand for particular technologies in specific regions. They work with our global network of partners to provide innovative solutions. WIPO Green has a rich global network of associations, institutions, governments, and businesses who contribute to our mission. WIPO Green understands the evolving needs of business, governments, and innovators. We are here to help you grow. Join WIPO Green to secure a greener future for your business and our world. As the world demand.

Good morning to everyone and welcome to the event, the WIPO event, Unlocking Climate Innovation from Global Commitments to Local Green Technology Deployment. We will start with opening remarks from our Assistant Director General from Global Challenges and Partnerships Sector, Mr. Edward Kwakwa, please.

Thank you, Victor. Excellencies, and I say excellencies because I am happy to see we have quite a few ambassadors with us this afternoon, distinguished delegates, colleagues from the United Nations system, innovators, partners, and friends, it is my great pleasure and my honor to open this event on unlocking climate innovation, from global commitments to local green technology deployment. And as you know, this is organized by the World Intellectual Property Organization under the auspices of the New York Climate Week and the High-Level Week of the UN General Assembly. And at the outset, I would like to extend a warm welcome and express our sincere appreciation to the distinguished high-level representatives who have generously joined us today, despite their demanding schedules during this pivotal week of the UN General Assembly. We are honored, of course, to welcome His Excellency Joao Paulo Ribeiro Capobianco, who is the Minister of Environment of Brazil. And Honorable Minister, in this regard, I would like to commend Brazil's leadership in advancing global climate change during its COP30 presidency last year. and to acknowledge the important outcomes that were achieved in Belm last year. Excellencies, this is a particularly important moment for the climate agenda. Around the world, countries have made commendable and ambitious climate commitments through their nationally determined contributions and their national adaptation plans. And yet, one of the most pressing challenges before us is translating these commitments into tangible results on the ground. And the question before us is no longer whether solutions exist, but rather how to deploy the solutions at scale. how to finance the solutions, and how to connect innovators with those who need their technologies the most. And this is where innovation, intellectual property, and partnerships can make a practical contribution. At WIPO, We believe that innovation must not remain confined to laboratories, to pilot projects, or to research papers. Rather, innovation should reach farmers facing changing weather patterns, communities seeking reliable clean energy, entrepreneurs building climate-resilient businesses, and indeed, countries striving to achieve their sustainable development objectives. Through WIPO GREEN, we endeavor to help bridge the gap between technology development and technology deployment. And we do this by connecting needs with solutions, by facilitating partnerships, and by supporting practical pathways for implementation. Our platform, our partner network, our knowledge resources, and our acceleration projects are all designed to help move climate innovation from promise to impact. Today's discussion, of course, is therefore particularly timely. And as we look ahead from COP30 in Brazil toward COP31 in Turkey and in due course, COP32 in Ethiopia, there is a unique opportunity to strengthen South-South cooperation and to build even stronger partnerships partnerships that accelerate the dissemination and the uptake of green technologies. The transition from climate ambition to climate implementation will indeed depend on our collective ability to work across sectors, across regions, and across institutions in a spirit of genuine partnership. Distinguished delegates, I would also like to warmly recognize the remarkable innovators who will be sharing their solutions with us today. The work of these innovators reminds us that innovation is already flourishing in every region of the world. What is needed now is greater support, enhanced visibility, and more expanded opportunities for deployment and for scaling. And in this regard, I wish to express WIPO's sincere gratitude to Syngenta Group for its general support in enabling the participation of two distinguished innovators from the WIPO Green Network and also winners of the WIPO Global Awards. And I am referring in particular to Ms. Renata Reinheimer of Argentina and to Ms. Esther Kimani of Kenya, whose presence here greatly enriches this dialogue. and exemplifies the value of partnership and expanding opportunities for climate innovators. I hope, of course, that this dialogue this afternoon will generate fruitful new partnerships, generate practical ideas, and generate concrete actions that help bring innovative solutions closer to the communities that need them most. And with that, I once again thank you all for your participation, and I look forward to a rich and productive discussion. Thank you. Back to you, Victor.

Thank you. Thank you very much, Assistant Director General, Edward Kwakwa. I would like now to give the floor, it is, as the ADG mentioned, a honor and a pleasure to do so, to Mr. Joao Paulo Ribeiro Capobianco, Minister of Environment of Brazil. Thank you.

Good afternoon, esteemed Mr. Edward Kwakwa, Assistant Director General of WIPO. Esteemed Excellencies, dear friends, it's a great pleasure to address you at this important and timely event on the importance of technology for solving the climate crisis. I must start by highlighting the importance of the decision adopted in Belai during the COP30 on technology development and transfer. The Berlin Technology Implementation Programme, BTIP, adopted after an intensive year of negotiations, informal consultations and constructive dialogue, has laid the foundation for a new era for climate technology development. This effort builds on priorities already identified through technology needs assessments in the seas national adaptation plans and other strategic frameworks. I'm confident that there are many synergies between the excellent WIPO and its WIPO Green project and the mandate established in Berlin through the Berlin Technology Implementation Program. And I hope this meeting provides a valuable opportunity for fruitful exchange and for initiating deliberations that how best to set the BTIP in motion. Technology has always been one of the cornerstone of the climate regime. In the current context, the climate urgency, it has become more essential than ever to ensure that technologies are developed transferred and deployed at scale in order to address the multiple challenges posed by the global warming. Another important decision taken in Belgrade was the review of the functions of the UNFCCC Climate Technology Centre and Network, CTCN, as well as the definition of the selection criteria for its host institution already. With the CTCN strengthened and the Berlin Technology Implementation Program set in motion, the conditions are now in place for technology to play an even more prominent role in climate action. Technology also featured prominently in the action agenda of the COP30, as it rightly should, given the central role of technological solutions in bridging the gap between commitment and tangible impact on the ground. For the first time, digital public infrastructure, DPI, became part of the COP action agenda. This open, non-proprietary and inclusive systems have enormous potential to enable and scale public climate policies. I am confident that concrete DPI deployments will partially support developing countries in mobilizing resource of implementing effective response to the multifaceted challenges they face. As expected, artificial intelligence was also a major topic in Berlin. Several initiatives were launched in this context, including the AI Climate Institute and the Green Digital Action Hub, both aimed at strengthening capacity building and fostering collaborative effort in this rapidly evolving field. In this regard, I would also like to commend the technology mechanism for conducting the AI for Climate Action Initiative and for mobilizing diverse stakeholders around the AI application that can support climate action while reducing their environmental footprint. Many other technological solutions were showcased in Belgrade, demonstrating both the large scope of this field and its immense potential to support humanity in this critical conjuncture. I trust that the TEC and CTCN will continue their important work as the policy and implementation arms of the technology mechanism under the UNFCCC. With the renewed mandate provided in Berlin, I am confident that technology development and transfer will be further strengthened and leveraged as an even more effective means of implementation. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much, Minister. And we will now place the focus on the innovators. And to do this, we have with us an expert and a key colleague in the WIPO Green Development, Ms. Anja von der Robbe, who will be leading the discussion, moderating.

Thank you, Victor. So it's really with great pleasure that I turn to some innovators from our network. that represent the wealth of what we are featuring or what we have within the WIPR Green database. So let me introduce them. There's Cassandra Moorcroft-King, the Chief Technology Officer at C-CORE in the US. We have Renata Reinheimer, co-founder of Infira from Argentina. We have Esther Kinami, founder and CEO of Pharma Lifeline Technologies based in Kenya. And we have Kevin Kang, the Chief Technology Officer at Taka Char, which is a Canadian Indian company. So they will be sharing their experiences as innovators and their insights into bringing technologies from concept to practical deployment on the ground. So we start first by each company's presenting the company, the solution it provides, and also the type of partnerships they are looking for at this stage in their journey. So I first invite Cassandra. Cassandra, the floor is yours.

So my name is Cassandra Morecroft-King. I am the director of technology at Seacore International. Our focus is on scaling coral reef restoration across the world. We started in the Caribbean and have slowly spread out. So, SeaCorps has been around for 10 years, and I have been a part only for six months, but I have become critical in kind of helping to scale that operation. So, I think the question that we all kind of face over here is how do we turn promising ideas into technology that people can actually use? And so from a coral perspective, I'm going to start with giving you a little bit of a lesson in coral because that is half the battle. So this beautiful picture that you're seeing is a coral spawning. That is how it naturally breeds and spreads out along across the reefs. The coral heads will spawn. They will mate up with other coral heads, and that will then create baby corals that find a spot on the reefs. current global climate crisis, that isn't happening to the rate that it used to. There's coral bleaching that most people probably have heard of, as well as various tissue diseases that have been a plight amongst the coral in the Caribbean and is also spreading across the global community. So next slide. So at SECOR, we take Technologies try to make them as simple as possible. Various organizations have more complex technologies. We then try to make them as easy to use to help bring coral seeding and help the coral reproduce naturally. This increases the genetic diversity and will help to create healthier reefs. We also have a team of scientists that are looking at what the latest issues the coral reefs are facing and what tools and technologies we need to bring to our partners around the world. And then in the end, our goal is to bring those to local partnerships and through a multi-year training program and mentorship program where they use the technologies within our bag of tricks. And also connecting with other partners and having discussions on what issues they may be facing. Right now we're operating in the Indian Ocean, Pacific Ocean, and the Caribbean, and are always continuing to expand our network of practitioners and people implementing coral technology. So next slide. What does that technology look like? In a lot of ways, we try to keep it, like I said, as simple as possible. It starts with the collection and fertilization of the eggs and the sperm that those coral produce. We then take from different colonies and mix that together to get the best genetic diversity that we can. Once that's done, they go to our rearing and settling technology, which is just a floating crib. It allows us to dump that genetic material in there with various substrates that have been designed for coral to settle onto it. And we help to raise them for the first couple weeks to months of their life in that situation. And then we allow them to go to the reef by the help of our practitioners and they grow up. Down at the bottom, you can see the little star there hidden beneath a coral. That takes about five years for a coral to be just a bit larger than my hand is. And so our real goal here is how do we bring those cost efficient tools that work in this space and help people to scale it. So we're always looking at how do we build new networks within countries and places like that. Next slide. So all that work can't be done without people supporting us and continuing to build out our network and very critical and Wipo allows us to kind of expand that network and continue to grow what partnerships are available. Thank you.

Thanks for these insights into the fascinating world of coral reef restoration. Renata, you're next.

Thank you. Thank you. My climate solution is in the agro industry. Most crops has a very short life. We plant them, we harvest them, and for most annual crops like cereals that feed the world, the harvest means the end of the life. To produce again, we have to start the system from zero, planting new seeds. At Infira, we are rethinking what happened with crops after harvest. We have developed a technology that allows crops, the same plant, to stay in the field after harvest to regrow and to produce again. One planting, more than one harvest opportunity. And this means fewer tractor passing, less input and fewer requirements, and also lower emissions above ground. And also while roots are still active below ground, helping to protect the soil and supporting carbon storage and a more regenerative agriculture. We already have the science, we already have the prototypes validated in the field. Now our challenge is the scale. And we understand that we cannot scale without the help of others, without collaboration. Collaboration, it is in our model. That's why we are looking for the right seed companies to partner. And also, we are looking for investors, but we need and a safe and a smart ecosystem that provide us with a clear regulatory pathway in term of for new breeding techniques, capital that understand biological processes timeline, and also policies that help us to test and deploy infeasible technology in different crops and in different countries. So because the real value for us in climate innovation is it is not where the science start, where it start, it is how far it can go from one plant to one field to million of factors. Thank you.

Thank you so much. So we have a younger enterprise than yours. Esther, please.

Thank you for the opportunity. Again, I'm Esther Kimani. I'm the founder and CEO at Farmer Lifeline Technologies. And at Farmer Lifeline Technologies, we exist to get farmers ahead of crop pests and diseases. Why I do what I do. Next slide. I grew up doing farming. with my dad in an area in Kenya called Nyandarua. And I am a first born daughter of four. They only got daughters. I hope they're happy about that. And as a first born, I got to understand all the pain points of a smallholder farmer. Sadly, we would lose almost half of our produce to pests and diseases in every farming season. What this meant to us as a family is that some of my basic needs went unmet. Sometimes you'd have to drop out of school, go back home until your parents are able to have enough money to pay your school fees. But that notwithstanding, I was the only girl from my village who made it to the university. And so the second picture is me and my mom on my first day as I was reporting to the university in a gray suit with a gray suitcase and a purple dress, which I have to date. And so I knew at this point, it was not just about the degree that I was going to study, but I was carrying responsibility with me that I left home to change home. Home in this case being farming communities such as the one that I grew up in. Next slide. I did my research. I realized that the problem is not isolated. It was not just about my farming community alone. Globally, we are losing 47%. 47%. That is almost half of the food we are producing to pests and diseases, and it is costing the global economy $220 billion every year. And with our growing population, we cannot afford to allow that curve to go as it is. Now, what smallholder farmers do-- and actually, I should have mentioned that in Africa, it's actually more than 50%. It's about 53% of the food produced. Now, what smallholder farmers do in a bid to find a solution They excessively use synthetic fertilizers and farm chemicals, emitting up to 9.8 billion tons of carbon annually. And that's about 24% of the total greenhouse emitted. Comparing that to the transport sector and burning of the fossil fuel, surprisingly, the agricultural sector might actually surpass the two if immediate action is not taken. So here's the good news. After studying a degree in computer science and meeting an able team, next slide, we developed and patented the first ever solar powered crop pest and disease detection device. It leverages artificial intelligence and machine learning for the timely detection of pests and diseases. And how it works is very simple. Next slide. So a farmer would reach out to us and we get to know where they are through the farmer cooperatives, the women groups, And when they request for the device, we install it on the farm facing the crops. Each one of the cameras that we are using is able to scan crops on a radius of 900 meters. And based on the land fragmentation in Kenya, we're able to serve between three to five farmers. And we use a subscription model where each farmer pays us $3 per month. Let's go back to the pests and diseases. Once a pest or disease is identified, the respective farmer receives a simple SMS on their mobile phone. It doesn't have to be internet connected. We're just using GSM technology, which all of them are acquainted to. And they receive this SMS of the crop type, the pest or disease that has been detected, and recommendations of what they should apply, and the exact quantities in their local language. That's how we are bridging that gap so that it's not in English, it's in a language that they all understand. And we also let them know of any climate risks around them. Next slide, please. For the longest time, we've had it backward. We thought that farmers should come to the technology, but at Farmer Lifeline, we're doing it in reverse. We are taking the technology to the farmers, and we leverage the training of women young girls as well, of course, those who are of age to be working, so that also the communities themselves have a good uptake of the technology. And they also help us in disseminating information about AI. AI doesn't have to be so complex. They're already using AI in that simple SMS getting to them. They don't have to understand the zeros and the ones and everything in between. Next slide, please. So, so far, we've been able to do the installation in at least 9,800 farms. We are saving on crop losses. We've sent over 2.9 million instances of pest and diseases. We are saving on emissions from the environmental friendly recommendations that we are sending. And the recommendations don't have to be chemicals. It can be a natural way of controlling the pest or disease, for example, intercropping spring onion with spinach. And we also send in the climate risks, alerts to them and recommending drought resilience seeds that they should plant. But how the future looks like, and this is where we all come in. Farmer Lifeline wants to impact 1 million smallholder farmers by 2030. And if you're in this room and you know how I can get the 1 million smallholder farmers by 2030, see me after this. Next slide, please.

Thank you. Can we wrap up?

Yes, this is the final slide. So we're looking at research and development. We're looking at scaling the innovation, not only in Kenya, but to also other African countries. The patenting process for us is key. We are looking to license our patent so that it's also a revenue stream. And we also own the intellectual property, not only at the Kenyan level, but also at a global level, and partnerships to get to the 1 million smallholder farmers by 2030. Thank you.

And last but not least, Kevin Kang, please.

It's my honor to be here. I'm Kevin, co-founder and chief technology officer of TakaChar. Our mission is to increase the amount of crop and forest residues economically converted into useful products. A lot of the residues today are still being burned in open air. which can create significant air pollution and also can exacerbate wildfires. And there are a lot of government agencies that are trying to regulate and restrict farmers from burning that, right? But a lot of the times, the limitation and the bottleneck is the lack of otherwise economical solutions. So what we have been realizing is that a lot of the residues are loose, wet, and bulky, which makes them very difficult and expensive to collect and transport to a centralized place. So therefore, a lot of rural areas are excluded from the benefits of the bioeconomy. So while we are developing our small scale, low cost portable systems shown on the right, that can latch onto the back of tractors and pickup trucks and deploy to rural, hard to access regions to locally upgrade and densify these residues into higher value carbon based bioproducts, including chemicals, biofuels, and biochar based fertilizers. And in fact, a lot of our market poll is actually based on a biochar fertilizer, especially given the current status of the Strait of Hormuz, which makes a lot of the chemical fertilizers really expensive and really supply constraint. And a lot of the farmers really find that when they combine some of those chemicals with the biochar, they're able to essentially retain not only nutrients, but also moisture and therefore increase their yield, sometimes up to 30%. Next slide, please. So, so far we have deployed 30 units worldwide and serving about 21,000 farmers. So this includes India, Kenya, US, Canada, and we have also units in Iraq thanks to the World Food Program and Thailand, Philippines and Nigeria. And essentially, as we deployed a fleet of reactors, we started to realize that for a lot of the rural communities, financing and accessing is an issue, right? And as we have a fleet, we are actually able to packaging some of the environmental attributes, such as carbon credits, and really finding external buyers like Klarna Bank, Shopify, and Salesforce to really finance the pre-purchase of these credits such that they can be passed on to these rural communities and really make this much more scalable. So we thank Wipo Green and also World Food Program for getting us here today. Thank you.

Thank you so much. I think it's also. Well, exciting to see the wealth of the different technologies that we have. And we focused mostly on agriculture today, but also seeing how you are linked to actually what's happening on the ground. We have time for one round of questions to see what we can actually learn from your experiences and how we can use these innovations and get to technology deployment. So first I want to turn to Renata and ask you where you see the biggest gap between sort of promising climate innovations and successful deployment?

Yes, climate innovation can be scientifically strong and technically possible, but still it's not enough. To make the technology work in the real world, we didn't have to miss to analyze the economics of the system. We have to understand who the key partners are, what drives their decisions, and whether our technology can create value to them. Of course, we need clear regulatory pathways, capital policies that help us to test and deploy the technologies. So I understand this. We can narrow the gap by creating an ecosystem around the technology, ecosystem that push forward. And in this sense, I think the White Papering platform is an excellent opportunity to interact, to make networks, because it connects innovators with markets, with partners, investors and also with the local contact, which is very important.

Thank you so much. And Cassandra, what do you think, what policy changes would most accelerate the diffusion of your technology? And then also, to what extent can that be generalised for others?

Yeah, I think from a coral restoration perspective, we often fall into issues with policy with regards to consistency and known timelines. With coral, we only have spawning for a lot of the species once a year. So when we miss a timeline or a deadline, it can delay a project up to a year or longer. And so for us, that is the critical element in terms of policy. And I think when you look at all of us, we're all trying to get local communities operating, maintaining, adapting, and using. So it comes down to how do we get those policies in place so that we can all be successful as quickly as we can.

Thank you so much. And Kevin, what has helped you most move from pilot stage? And generally, what do you think what differentiates innovators who successfully make it from those who remain at pilot stage?

Yeah, so I think biomass and agriculture is highly context dependent, right? And therein lies the challenge because you really have to study each context, right? And essentially making sure that the solution meet those needs. So I think for our most successful scaling are actually partner driven, right? So they are the local partners who actually have a vision, right, and are seeing kind of what our technology could bring to their communities. And we are really there just to play a supporting role to help them succeed. Right. But that said, just to build on to the earlier point about policy, it does help. For example, Kenya is one of the countries where we have the most number of farmers that are beneficiaries because our local partner, was able to work with the local government to figure out a way to get this biochar-based fertilizer blend into the local government procurement program and subsidy program for the farmers. So that does add a lot, go a long way for adoption.

This is really great, and I'm almost sad that we don't have more time. But as to beyond funding, what has helped you most or what forms of support were most helpful to you as a climate innovator?

That's a very good question. In addition to patient capital, one would be practical skills on how to scale. As a winner in the WIPO Global Awards, one of the best skills that we credit to date is the ability to commercialize our IP. And as businesses, as we grow, when we're talking about filing IPs locally and internationally, you also need to see where you're heading with your IP. And I think practical skills do help us even as we scale. That's one. Two, partnerships, as mentioned earlier, with governments, because when they endorse the work that we do, it also makes it easier when it comes to entry to markets. And it doesn't have to be only in our countries. In gatherings such as this, ministers present or decision makers present who hear these solutions and they find that there's need of these solutions in their countries can also endorse these innovations in their countries, giving also an easier entry to market to the different innovators that are in the room. Last but not least would be access to information. We say information is power. They are critical decision makers and policymakers who know information that can help us scale faster and deeper in the markets that we are in. So access to critical information at the right time.

Great. Yes, as I said, I think we would love to deepen this dialogue, but we'll have to use another opportunity. And with that, I'll hand back to Victor.

Many thanks, Anya, and thank you to all the innovators for this very insightful exchange. We now place the focus on the multi-stakeholder panel discussion. As you know, WIPO Green supports needs identification, technology scouting, matchmaking, financing and partnership building for large-scale green technology dissemination and uptake. In this panel, we want to shed light on different elements and perspectives in this innovation ecosystem and discuss how we can bring them together. We have very outstanding speakers with us, but they will allow us not to introduce them upfront in the interest of time. So I will just mention their name and title as they address the questions. So I will start with Lucile Hopital-Million. Global Head of Crop Protection Policy and Advocacy in Syngenta Group. So, Lucy, agriculture is both highly vulnerable to climate change and critical for food security. From Syngenta's perspective, what are the most promising innovations helping farmers adapt to climate change while maintaining productivity?

So, Climate resilience obviously is going to require a lot of different innovation. There's not going to be one silver bullet, so I could mention a lot. I'm just going to limit myself to two types of innovation. The first one is what we call pursuing that higher yield with lower impact. So we want more resilient crops in the face of changing weather patterns and higher impact of climate change. So how do we do that? We do that with better crop protection tools for disease control, to protect yield even under challenging environment. And Esther, you mentioned how important it is to protect yield. We also do a lot of research development in bringing biologicals and biostimulants to market. Those improve crop resilience to environmental stress, such as drought, heat, cold, soil degradation. Another type of important technology, and again, we've seen the example with Esther, is the digital agriculture technology, which is extremely important. It brings precision agriculture, predictive analytics, AI directly into the hands of farmers. It helps them make better decision, optimize how to use their inputs, and adapt more quickly to changing condition. And this access to knowledge in our view is particularly important for smallholders, again, because you can bring this immense agronomic advice directly into their phones. So at the end of the day, our goal is as big a toolbox as possible and always keep it farmer centric.

Yes, thank you, thank you, Lucy. And now I move to Mr. Bernhard Kowarz, Director of Global Accelerator and Ventures, United Nations World Food Program. Bernhard, WFP operates at the intersection of hunger, climate change, and emergency response. Which climate innovations have the greatest potential to strengthen food systems and resilience, and what is still preventing their wider adoption?

Yeah, thank you. I think from a food security perspective in combining climate adaptation and also some of the most vulnerable people who are smaller farmers, food insecure, and also suffering from the consequences of climate change, like droughts, floods, and so on. I think one of the aspects to actually broaden the scope also of this conversation is to say like it's not just we need solutions. Now the solution of focusing like on, you know, on farm, smaller farmers, like helping them, whether this is like farming practice, market access and so on and so forth, digital tools, we already heard about this. So like I agree with that. But there's also opportunities whether this is like anticipatory action for emergency response to bring that in, in terms of like for, um, acting now or preparing before disasters happen, which is like broadening this also in this concept, but then also looking into a broader innovative finance concept. This is where it's also about insurance concepts, uh, about like parametric insurance for farmers. on, again, individual farmers, but it could also be, again, larger, like state solutions or like even investors coming in for these types of things. Now, I think this is an important aspect when we are talking about how do we scale, if we want to have impact at scale, this is really about, I think there needs to be innovations, innovators, startups, ventures, like, and I think bringing together like the technology and actually probably scaling that is one of the ways. But we also need more partnerships, and this could be like individual companies, could be international organizations, governments, communities, but also private companies actually coming together.

Thank you, very interesting. And we are now focusing on translating ambition into deployment. And for that, I would like to ask Mr. Martin Kroes, Director of Climate Change Division in the United Nations Environment Programme. From your experience with UNEP and at the CTCN, what are the most important steps for translating the technology priorities identified in countries' NDCs and national adaptation plans into concrete, locally implemented projects?

Thank you very much for that question, and good afternoon, everybody. UNEP is hosting the Climate Technology Center and Network, as the Minister has said, and as you have said, Victor. After, I think, 30 years of working on climate action and climate technologies, we have learned certain things. Many of the things that we have learned in the global climate community, I think the entrepreneurs and companies who are sitting here, they have already talked about them. So what are the things that we have learned really when it comes to translating national priorities into real action? One thing is that those who are doing the reports on climate technologies, the technology needs assessments, for example, or those who are doing the NDCs, or the national adaptation plans, those colleagues and experts in the countries are often not connected to those who actually have the technology solutions. These are different communities. Some are sitting in the Ministry of Environment or Energy or Climate, and they get these reports from the UNFCCC that they have to submit, and this is an obligation for each country to do. But there's very little connection often between those and then the companies who actually have technology solutions. So there is no communication there at the national level. That's one challenge and one problem that prevents us from translating technology priorities that have been identified into large scale action. And the second one, allow me to mention, is, you know, technology, as has been mentioned, is only one ingredient. of a package that needs to be put together if you want to reach scale. What are the other ingredients in that package? And these are not secrets. This is nothing new. And we have been talking about this for many, many years. There needs to be some political will. There needs to be finance in place. There needs to be some skills and capacities. There needs to be a legislative and regulatory framework. So conducive conditions for technologies to thrive and to reach scale is what we need to create. And that package of ingredients looks different for each country and for each local situation, as has been mentioned already here, that the local context is very important. There is not one-size-fits-all. And that is the second basic lesson, I think, that we have all learned and that we need to remind ourselves of as we go along. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Martin. And now moving to the important play that universities, important role that universities play in this context, I would like to address the following question to Professor Alexis Abronson, Dean of the Faculty of Climate, Columbia. Columbia School, Columbia Climate School, which is, how can academic institutions help bridge the gap between climate research, policy making, and technology deployment, and make sure the knowledge is relevant to the most pressing problems?

Great, thank you for that question and for inviting me to be here. I think we often think of universities as being the place where education is delivered, and of course that is true, but also universities comprise faculty and researchers with deep expertise in a variety of fields and are often seen as neutral parties and can really be the connective tissue, if you will, between the science and engineering, between the policy, between the business models, even looking at various health concerns or understanding how history might play a role or anthropology. And so really looking at universities to be that connective tissue is incredibly important. But as we increasingly kind of look to universities to really have an impact on the world, What we're finding at universities right now is that we need to have better partnerships with more short-term deliverables. It's one of the things we're doing at the Climate School at Columbia is we have what we call the Global Impact Lab. We have an accelerator within it, but the Global Impact Lab more broadly is about developing partnerships with NGOs, with governments, with companies to help them find near-term solutions That will then lead to more immediate impact. So we're not waiting 20 years for a research paper to then sort of find its way into the marketplace. And so, in particular with innovation that plays a really important role, because we're getting those partners engaged really early. in the development of ideas so that our engineers are thinking about policy before, right, they find out five years later, oh, I should have considered that in a particular location of the world that I'm interested in. And so Bringing that into the discussion early is really important. And so universities and partnerships really play a really important role in making sure that innovation moves on maybe a straighter path rather than a more tortuous path to the marketplace and to impacting society in positive ways.

Thank you, Professor. Now focusing on linking innovation to demand and customer needs. I would like to ask Bernhard, what have you learned about scaling solutions effectively in countries and communities facing very different needs, markets, and operating conditions?

So this is really in like, seconding what Alexis was just saying. So one of the ways that we started 11 years ago as World Food Program is we set up an innovation accelerator, a global accelerator for helping us essentially support innovations. They could be internal innovations, could be companies. So Takachar has been supported through our accelerator program, like a couple of years back started then. and, uh, could also be like public private partnerships or, uh, other solutions that we actually are looking at. Now, this type of accelerator, as you see it in Silicon Valley, in the global south, if you do this on a global scale, is like what we found, it has to be different, right? Whereas like So if you are in New York and you're building a solution that's relevant for New York, you can go outside the road and just ask people, do you like this or not? Now, if you're talking about, OK, you have a solution that wants to essentially scale from one country to the next, what you need to have is the local communities co-developing the solutions when it's like, is it really solving a problem? So that's probably step number one. So trying to find, is the solution really solving a problem? So once that's in place and you've actually established that this is working, it's about bringing the communities together where it's necessary with the funding, with the partners, and actually then finding the best success factors. And we do this typically in our accelerator programs for WFP, for the Adaptation Fund, 20 different accelerators that we're running this year. trying to find like what the innovation teams behind the innovators and supporting them with what they need to lift them to up to the next level. So that might be you need technology, know how it might be. You need know how to adapt your solution to a new operating environment in another country. Or it could be that you build another business model behind what you're actually working on. And I think this is the element on and looking at Takachar, but also other ventures that come through our program. Just to mention one company that's called Ignitia, they came to us, they were already in nine countries in Africa using satellite imagery and AI for precision ag information for smaller farmers and farming advice, and we helped them expand into more. And I think this is how did it happen, by introducing them to the government, to the local communities, co-developing their solution with the communities that they're serving right now, and I think that's where bridging this kind of the local needs with like scale is one of the pathways that can actually get you there.

Thank you, Bernhard. And Lucy, how does your company identify and source promising technologies from startups, universities, and other innovation partners? And what criteria determine whether a solution moves forward for testing, partnership, or investment?

So We do engage with a wide range of partners and potential partner. I think Bernard, you listed a number of them, so I'm not gonna repeat that. Of course, it doesn't matter where the solution comes from. It matters whether it answers a real farmer's need and whether it has the impact to deliver at scale. So some of the branches that we have to establish new partnerships, we have an organism called Shoots by Syngenta, where we put out some challenges and we ask for people to answer those online and bring in their solutions so we can exchange with them about it. We have Syngenta Group Ventures, which essentially runs like a venture fund specialized in agriculture. And we have R&D collaborations. I think our R&D team has more than 500 active collaborations across the world right now. So this is very important to us to be constantly collaborating with the widest range of partners as possible. The process and how we engage with them is very classic to a certain extent. You're going to look at, does this sensor a real farmers need? Is it scalable? What's the competition looking like? Is it sustainable? Is it more sustainable than other alternatives on the market, et cetera? But where we differ is that we try to design the path to scale from the start because we are able to bring in this domain expertise, we're able to bring in this understanding of supply chain and the challenges of distribution and the differences of the different markets. So we try to have that conversation early on so it can be built into the plan as early as possible. And I think Renata, you mentioned the importance of having capital that understands agriculture timeline, or Esther, you said patient capital, which is a great expression. This is also very important. This is not something that traditional venture capital or financing organism may look at in the same way, because when it comes to agriculture, you need patience, you need lengthy timelines for testing, product validation cycle for localized adaptation, and this clashes with funding model. So this is how we approach those partnership and how we move forward when we select them.

Thank you, Lucy. And Alexis, drawing on your extensive experience in research, commercialization, and corporate partnerships, what does it take to turn a promising climate technology into a solution that companies and communities are ready to adopt? So I think.

I'm probably building off of what has been said. Maybe I can do that with a bit with an example about sort of making sure that as you're developing this technology, you're working with those partners that you mentioned, Lucy, to get early sort of understanding of what the product might be, where the value proposition is. I am a founder of a startup called Nfc Analytics, and it does sort of virtual energy audits of buildings. And It can take whole building data and disaggregate that into different loads with very little information about the building. And one of the uses we thought we were going to use was being able to sell windows. So lots of window companies trying to do retrofits on windows. And It's a very strange customer acquisition problem for them. They have to go out kind of door to door in the residential market at least and try and sell these windows without much information of the payback that replacing your windows might give you. So with our tool, we could give this quantitative impact. You could tell the customers you're trying to acquire, it's gonna be 12 years of payback or seven years of payback and we could calculate that in an instant. And the window companies said, we don't want our customers to have this information because the number is going to be scary because it's not going to be two years. It's going to be seven and 12. And my point here is that process of customer discovery and getting out there and asking partners you didn't even know you needed is really key to being successful in the marketplace. And the other point I wanted to make, which I think we've heard about here, is making sure that there are pathways like WIPO presents, like we heard from Bernard as well, these accelerators or other kinds of ecosystems available to provide that support to entrepreneurs. Without it, it's very hard to navigate, certainly globally, all of what it takes to get from sort of the laboratory or a nascent idea out to the marketplace?

Thank you. Thank you, Alexis and Martin. What are the main barriers preventing proven climate technologies from moving beyond demonstration or pilot projects, particularly in developing and climate vulnerable countries? And how can international cooperation help overcome them?

I mean, there are thousands and thousands of demonstration and pilot projects out there and there is somehow the expectation that each pilot and demonstration project has to reach scale. And I think it's a misguided expectation. Many of these projects are happening in LDCs, in SIDS, in conflict countries, in, you know, countries that are unstable in many ways, and we cannot expect that all these pilots and demonstration projects reach scale, not even in OECD countries. Innovative projects where you have stable conditions reach scale. Many fail because we are taking risks. Many of these innovation projects are, when you look at the risk reward profile, you know, it's a high risk undertaking, and so That's my first point. We need to allow failure. My second point is often the economics are not right, and that prevents these pilot projects to reach scale. A pilot project that is sponsored with a grant from an international organization might work very well, but as soon as you confront that project with real life economics, it might not work anymore. Although the technology works, but the project will not reach scale if the economics don't work. And I think, Renata, you have already mentioned that. I'm only repeating what all of you are saying, basically. And the third point on this part of the question, how can international cooperation help? The third point here is, international cooperation cannot really address the magnitude of the needs and the demands that we have. International cooperation and international finance will never be enough. So what that means is we need to find a way to combine and to sequence international grant finance with investments that are coming from the private sector, both domestically and internationally, to have a combination and a sequence of these different sources of funding and not to rely exclusively on international financing, which will never be enough to reach scale. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Martin. And we have many more questions to put, but the time is short and we have to move forward. Maybe I will invite a small round of applause for this excellent presentation. Anya is for a presentation, the African Green Tech Coalition. Please, Anya.

Thank you so much. I just very much also liked all your interventions, and it reminds me because I've been to another conference just before with an innovator who talked at length about how hard it also is to produce something that the customer wants. So I think that's a point that we shouldn't forget. And I guess that's what you meant also by taking into account the economies. But turning to an initiative that we want to launch here. Yes, we've heard that countries have set priorities And at the same time, it's also in parallel, innovators are developing promising solutions. These include many different technologies from climate smart agriculture over clean energy, water management, circular economy, and climate resilience technologies. So countries know their priorities. And innovators have technologies that are ready to deploy, but too often these aren't connected enough. So what we think is that the gap is not the innovation, but the gap is the connection between the two. We take this opportunity to launch an African Green Tech Coalition. This is an action-oriented initiative to accelerate the deployment of proven green technologies across Africa on the road to COP32 in Ethiopia in 2027. Our ambition is straightforward. We want to turn climate commitments into implementation, I think you heard today, and implementation into impact. This coalition will bring together governments, innovators, investors, businesses, research institutions, and development partners around concrete opportunities for deployment. It will not create another layer of institutions, but connect and strengthen what already exists. Together, we can align technologies with country needs, build stronger pipelines of investment-ready projects and give African innovations the visibility and partnerships they need to scale. This coalition must be shaped by the people who make it work. We also talked a lot about sort of being connected to what is happening in the countries and being connected to what is happening locally. So what we do today is to invite different stakeholders like governance, financing organizations, companies, universities, innovation hubs, civil society, youth networks, and international organizations to help define the priorities and practical work streams. On October 8th, WAP Green will convene the coalition's first meeting. We will test this proposed strategy, identify priority areas for collaboration, and agree on first steps forward. So before you leave today, scan, please, the code on your phone and fill that form, which will only take a moment, where you can express interest, share your expertise and your priorities, and receive an invitation to that meeting on October 8. Africa doesn't lack ideas nor ambition. African innovators are already creating solutions with the potential to transform communities and economies. They need greater visibility, investment, and partnerships to bring these solutions to scale. So let's work together, support African innovation, and help homegrown solutions move from promise to impact. Please join us and turn climate ambition into action across Africa. Thank you so much.

Thank you very much, Anya. And for closing remarks and key takeaways, I would pass the floor now to our Assistant Director General, Edward Kwakwa.

Thank you very much, Victor. Whoa, whoa, whoa. So I think in less than two hours, in fact, in less than an hour and a half, We've had a very, very rich discussion, and I'm personally very pleased to hear the different viewpoints, to hear the different experiences that have been put on the table. We've heard from government ministers, we've heard from innovators, we've heard from intellectual property activists, we've heard from international organizations, academia, and various messages have come through very clearly. So as we come to the end of today's event, let me, on behalf of the World Intellectual Property Organization, really, really thank you all for having participated in this session. Of course, this is just the beginning of a dialogue. We are hoping we will continue with this. Anja has mentioned this Green Tech Coalition going forward to COP32. So we all have a lot of things to do. I think certain consistent messages have come up today. One of the main things is that addressing challenges, climate challenges in particular, requires not only ambition, but it requires actual implementation. And while countries continue to strengthen their climate commitments, whether through nationally determined contributions or through their national adaptation plans. Clearly, we have certain other policy frameworks that have also been put in place by certain countries, and these will all help ensure that innovative solutions are deployed at scale, and more importantly, that they reach the communities that need them the most. One theme that has emerged clearly is that no country, no institution, no entity can do this alone. And we've also heard how South-South cooperation, how knowledge sharing, and how cross-sector collaboration will all be essential to accelerating the dissemination and the uptake of green technologies worldwide. This is precisely where Waipo Green comes in, but I don't want to make it sound like we are here just to promote Waipo Green, although if I can say so myself, I think Waipo Green has done a very, very good job. But you all doing very good jobs. You are also helping promote not just Waipo Green, but the fight against climate change. And that's something we would really want to encourage you to continue doing. As we look ahead, we think, our hope is that today's exchange will serve not just as a discussion, but it's going to be a catalyst for new collaborations. It's going to be a catalyst for concrete action. And we are particularly excited about the opportunities presented by what Anja explained, the African Green Tech Coalition. Again, it's not just Africa that needs to launch such an initiative, but we all agree heading towards COP32 because it is placed in Addis Ababa, it makes perfect sense to have such a coalition with the African continent in particular in mind. So in ending, let me simply express the sincere thanks of the World Intellectual Property Organization, starting with the Permanent Mission of Brazil. And of course, speaking of the Permanent Mission of Brazil, I should again like to thank the Honorable Minister for honoring us with his presence today. He's really, really put our discussions on a higher level. And again, this is tribute to the fact that Brazil is already at the center stage of discussions relating to the environment, and we would encourage Brazil to continue this. Let's continue working together to unlock the full potential of innovation and green technology, all in support of climate action and sustainable development. So thank you all once again for your time, for your patience. Well, it didn't take too long. We were under 90 minutes. But thank you for your patience anyway. Thank you for your very immense contributions. And we look forward to taking the dialogue forward with us. And please continue the discussions even after this meeting is over. Again, thank you very much.

Thank you. Thank you. Just a practical comment. We apologize for not having time for questions and answers, but you can send us your questions and our colleagues from WIPO Green will respond to them. And you will find as you go out on the left side some bags and promotional material that you can take with you as a memory of this event. Thank you.