He describes seven types of policy options that are available to influence the speed of CFT diffusion in developing countries, and offers his own prescriptions for successful technology-based climate change policy. Yet their ability and willingness to reduce emissions is constrained by limited financial resources, weak regulatory institutions, and the perception that they should not have to bear the costs of mitigating a problem primarily created by industrialized countries.
Widespread diffusion can take from five to fifty years.
Economists have attributed this phenomenon to a number of factors including differences in the characteristics of potential adopters, lags in the dissemination of information about the new technology, the scarcity of critical inputs, and the sensitivity of output prices to cost-saving technical change. Blackman concludes by describing policy options that can influence the rate of diffusion of CFTs in developing countries. However, Blackman notes that some of these policies involve up-front economic costs that are more immediate and payoffs that are more delayed than others, making them unattractive to decision makers with short time horizons. Thus, the most practical policy options, according to Blackman, are rationalizing energy prices, improving information, and investing in energy infrastructure. In a number of developing and reforming economies, energy is still subsidized.