Daren Tang
Director General
World Intellectual Property Organization

Welcome to the inaugural edition of the Green Technology Book, a new Flagship publication from WIPO.

As the UN agency for innovation, creativity and intellectual property (IP), WIPO is committed to supporting the development of green technologies and new innovative solutions in the fight against climate change. The global IP system plays a critical role in ensuring that such solutions create impact. It helps translate basic research into tangible climate change solutions, incentivizes public and private R&D investment into environmentally-friendly technologies and generates a vast treasure trove of information that is open and accessible to all.

This is important. Innovation and technology are critical to tackling the many different facets of the climate crisis. This includes climate change adaptation – the theme of this year's publication.

Adaptation will increasingly become a necessity for fast-growing parts of the world’s population, as well as for natural ecosystems in every region of the globe. As there is no “one-size-fits-all” approach to adaptation, the solutions take a variety of forms according to local contexts and needs. But investment in climate adaptation has long lagged behind climate mitigation. This is despite the fact that for many countries – developing countries in particular – it is adaptation responses that have the most immediate impact.

With this in mind, 'the inaugural edition focuses on three areas that can benefit from new technological advances: Agriculture and forestry – Water and coastal regions – and Cities. Our aim is to provide a practical guide for those at the frontline of climate change  – coastal communities, farmers, vulnerable urban populations and others – as well as innovators, industry, researchers and agencies, which raises awareness of solutions. By offering this guide we hope to encourage their adoption for the benefit of all.

The book builds upon the work of our tech-matching platform WIPO GREEN, whose growing database of nearly 130,000 entries from around the world connects green technology providers with those seeking environmentally-friendly solutions.

One of the key findings of this inaugural edition of the Green Technology Book is that, while there remains scope for speeding up new technology deployment, we should take encouragement – and inspiration – from the sheer range of transformational tools at every stage of development.

We know that the window of opportunity for climate action is narrowing. As the most recent IPCC report states with high confidence, rising temperatures are a serious and mounting threat to human life, biodiversity and infrastructure.

Access to a balanced and neutral guide on the global state of green innovation and technology is therefore critical. By focusing attention on current and emerging technology trends we hope the Green Technology Book can be that resource and add momentum to those areas that are driving much-needed change.

I would like to thank our partners the UN Climate Technology Centre Network (CTCN) and Egypt's Academy of Scientific Research and Technology (ASRT) for their support in this new initiative, as well as everyone at WIPO who has helped make the Green Technology Book a reality.

I hope you will find it a store of useful information and valuable insights into how innovation can help us address climate change and its impacts.