Challenges and Opportunities for Renewable Energy Technology Transfer in Least Developed Countries

This paper, the second of a two-part series, focuses on the role of trade and investment in enabling the diffusion of green technologies to least developed countries (LDCs) to help their transition to renewable energy. LDCs are already making progress in expanding their use of clean energy sources: the total renewable energy generated by all LDCs more than doubled between 2010 and 2020 and, on average across the LDC group, more than half (51.6 per cent) of their total energy generation in 2020 came from renewable sources, compared to a global average of 27.7 per cent. Recognising this potential in the renewable energy sector, this paper argues that LDCs could benefit from the transfer of technology through trade and investment, which would enable them to make greater use of their existing resource endowments and accelerate their energy transitions, while also contributing to their economic transformation and to mitigating climate change.