New Zealand Celsias

Japan, with 37.1 percent of global inventions. That’s according to one of the most comprehensive analysis ever undertaken on global cleantech innovation. Economists Matthieu Glachant and Antoine Dechezleprêtre used the EPO Worldwide Patent Statistical Database (PATSTAT) to examine the geographic distribution and global diffusion of inventions in thirteen climate mitigation technologies since 1978. 

Unfortunately there's no mention of New Zealand in the study, with cleantech innovation concentrated in three countries—Japan, Germany and the USA. When combined, these three countries account for 60 percent of total inventions. Japan does an impressive job overall, coming first in all technology fields, except for marine energy, where it does the next best thing by coming in at second. Japan also accounts for 50 percent of the world's inventions in electric & hybrid, waste, and lighting. 

The contribution of emerging economies isn’t too shabby either, with China and South Korea together accounting for about 15 percent of total inventions. Russia isn’t far behind. China, South Korea and Russsia are important innovators in fields like cement (China and Russia), geothermal (China), and lighting (South Korea). Another emerging economy, Brazil, also ranks among the top 12 countries. However, other emerging  economies lag far behind, with Taiwan, India, and Mexico ranked 21, 27 and 29,  respectively. However, inventions from emerging economies are less likely to find markets beyond their borders, suggesting that inventions from emerging economies have less value. 

The data also shows that innovation was mostly driven by energy prices until 1990. Since then, environmental policies and climate policies appear to have induced more innovation, with the pace of innovation accelerating since 2000. 

Read the full analysis HERE. 

About the figures

Glachant and Dechezleprêtre built up the data by gleaning all patent applications filed from 1978 to 2005 in 13 climate-mitigation technology fields. Patent applications related to these fields were identified using International Patent Classification (IPC) codes. In total, their analysis looks at 285,770 patent applications filed in 76 countries. The authors say the climate-related patents included in their data set represent 1 percent of the total number of patents filed annually worldwide.

Image: Flickr - AZRainman