Climate Adaptation Export Competitiveness Request for Information, 27552-27555 [2023-09051]

Agencies

• DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
• International Trade Administration
• Trade and Development Agency

[Federal Register Volume 88, Number 84 (Tuesday, May 2, 2023)]
[Notices]
[Pages 27552-27555]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2023-09051]


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DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

International Trade Administration

TRADE AND DEVELOPMENT AGENCY

[Docket Number: 230417-0103]


Climate Adaptation Export Competitiveness Request for Information

AGENCY: International Trade Administration, Department of Commerce, and 
U.S. Trade and Development Agency.

ACTION: Request for public comments; Climate Adaptation Export 
Competitiveness Request for Information.

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SUMMARY: This notice seeks public comments on climate adaptation and 
resilience-related technologies and services to enhance the U.S. 
government's understanding of opportunities and challenges for U.S. 
exporters in these sectors. The comments will be used by the U.S. 
Department of Commerce's International Trade Administration (ITA) and 
the U.S. Trade and Development Agency (USTDA) to align U.S. government 
trade promotion and trade policy activities to those sectors and 
markets that present the greatest opportunities for exporters of 
climate adaptation and resilience-related technologies and services, as 
well as to address relevant trade barriers and promote U.S. industry 
competitiveness.

DATES: Comments are requested no later than June 30, 2023.

ADDRESSES: You may submit electronic comments, identified by Docket 
Number: 230417-0103 via the Federal e-Rulemaking Portal. Go to https://www.regulations.gov and enter Docket Number: 230417-0103 in the Search 
box. Click on the ``Comment'' icon, complete the required fields, and 
enter or attach your comments.
    If you are unable to comment via regulations.gov, you may contact 
[email protected] for instructions on submitting your comment.
    Instructions: Comments sent by any other method, to any other 
address or individual, or received after the end of the comment period, 
may not be considered by ITA or USTDA. Comments received before the 
deadline are a part of the public record and will generally be posted 
for public viewing on www.regulations.gov without change.
    Commenters should include the name of the person or organization 
filing the comment. All personal identifying information (for example, 
name, address) voluntarily submitted by the commenter may be publicly 
accessible. ITA and USTDA will not accept anonymous comments.
    For those seeking to submit confidential business information (CBI) 
for government use only, please clearly mark such submissions as CBI 
and submit an accompanying redacted version to be made public.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: 
    ITA, Anna Cron, International Trade Administration; 1401 
Constitution Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20230; telephone: (202) 843-2376; 
email: [email protected]. Please direct media inquiries to ITA's Office 
of Public Affairs (202) 482-3809 or [email protected].
    USTDA, Eric Haxthausen, U.S. Trade and Development Agency; 1101 
Wilson Blvd., Suite 1100, Arlington, VA 22209; telephone: (703) 875-
4357; email: [email protected]. Please direct media inquiries 
to Paul Marin in USTDA's Office of Public Affairs at (703) 875-4357.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: On January 27, 2021, President Biden issued 
Executive Order 14008, ``Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and 
Abroad'' (86 FR 7619). E.O. 14008 puts climate considerations at the 
forefront of U.S. foreign policy and national security. The E.O. also 
directs agencies that engage in extensive international work to develop 
strategies and implementation plans for integrating climate 
considerations into their overseas programming. During the 26th 
Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on 
Climate Change (UNFCCC COP26) in November 2021, President Biden 
announced the launch of the President's Emergency Plan for Adaptation 
and Resilience (PREPARE), a whole-of-government initiative that serves 
as the cornerstone of the U.S. government response to addressing the 
increasing

[[Page 27553]]

impacts of the global climate crisis to enhance global stability and 
security.
    The increased focus on climate adaptation and resilience is timely 
as recent analyses have identified the need for trillions of dollars in 
annual infrastructure investments over the coming years and decades. 
This infrastructure will need to accommodate new climate conditions, 
and specific investments will be needed to support communities and 
businesses in adapting to new climate-related risks. Mindful of these 
needs and the opportunity to spur U.S. innovation and create well-
paying jobs in addressing them, ITA and USTDA, together with their 
partner agencies across the U.S. government, seek to expand climate 
adaptation and resilience-related programming to support sustainable 
infrastructure needs while promoting the export of U.S. technologies 
and services.
    In support of PREPARE and their trade-focused missions, ITA and 
USTDA are requesting public comments on the export competitiveness of 
climate adaptation and resilience-related technologies and services, 
and potential opportunities and challenges in the export of climate 
adaptation and resilience-related solutions. Both agencies are 
interested to identify possible actions the Federal government could 
take to foster U.S. export competitiveness in this area.

ITA

    ITA strengthens the competitiveness of U.S. industry, promotes 
trade and investment, and ensures fair trade through the rigorous 
enforcement of our trade laws and agreements. ITA works to improve the 
global business environment and helps U.S. organizations of all sizes 
to compete at home and abroad. To advance the Administration's climate 
and trade agenda, ITA focuses on four strategic objectives: (1) 
Promoting U.S. exports and inward investment; (2) Removing and 
preventing trade barriers; (3) Enforcing trade laws and agreements; and 
(4) Supporting U.S. companies competing for foreign projects. Through 
its more than 100 U.S. field offices nationwide and 80 offices across 
the globe, ITA offers companies a full range of services to plan, 
assess, promote, and expand business around the world.
    ITA is working to identify key issues influencing the deployment of 
U.S. climate solutions and to promote U.S. exports to address climate 
change. The stakeholder input sought through this notice will inform 
ITA's export promotion, commercial diplomacy, and trade compliance 
efforts, as well as assist in the development of trade promotion 
programs aimed to support U.S. exporters of climate adaptation and 
resilience-related technologies and services.

USTDA

    USTDA helps companies create U.S. jobs through the export of U.S. 
goods and services for priority infrastructure projects in emerging 
economies. USTDA links U.S. businesses to export opportunities by 
funding project preparation and partnership building activities that 
develop sustainable infrastructure and foster economic growth in 
partner countries. USTDA achieves its mission by funding feasibility 
studies, technical assistance and pilot projects that integrate U.S. 
private sector innovation into infrastructure projects at the critical 
early stages when design choices and technology options are determined. 
The Agency also connects overseas project sponsors with U.S. partners 
through its reverse trade missions, industry conferences and expert 
workshops. USTDA's dual mission of facilitating overseas economic 
development and U.S. exports is unique among Federal agencies. In 
carrying out its mission, the Agency places particular emphasis on 
vital economic sectors including clean energy, transportation, digital, 
and healthcare infrastructure.
    USTDA is seeking to integrate climate adaptation and resilience 
considerations into its programming across these priority sectors and 
to identify specific programming opportunities to support the export of 
U.S. technologies and services that strengthen developing and middle-
income countries' ability to prepare for and respond to external shocks 
and stresses associated with climate change. The stakeholder input 
sought through this notice will inform USTDA's efforts to develop 
project preparation activities including feasibility studies, technical 
assistance, and pilot projects, as well as partnership-building 
activities including reverse trade missions, industry events, and 
expert workshops, to link U.S. companies to climate adaptation and 
resilience-related export opportunities while fostering climate 
adaptation and sustainable infrastructure development in developing and 
middle-income countries.

Scope

    ``Climate adaptation'' is a broad term that can encompass a range 
of technologies, services and activities used to address a variety of 
issues relating to the effects and impacts of climate change. The 
UNFCCC defines climate adaptation as ``human-driven adjustments in 
ecological, social, or economic systems or policy processes, in 
response to actual or expected climate stimuli and their effects or 
impacts.'' Put simply, climate adaptation refers to strengthening the 
capacity of individuals, communities, assets and/or systems to 
withstand current or expected climate shocks or stressors.
    ``Climate resilience'' can be defined as the ability to prepare for 
and recover from the impacts of climate change. For the purpose of this 
request for public comment, ITA and USTDA are focused on both 
established and emerging technologies, and goods and services, that can 
contribute to the adaptive capacity and resilience of foreign partners 
to manage shocks and stresses associated with climate change.
    ``Climate adaptation and resilience-related technologies and 
services'' span a range of industries and sectors including the 
following, among others:
     Emergency response and preparedness, including early 
warning systems;
     Professional engineering and design services to improve 
infrastructure resilience;
     Hydro-meteorological systems and forecasting, mapping, 
data analysis, and other climate information services;
     Energy resilience (which may be provided or enhanced by 
minigrids, microgrids, electricity grid weatherization and monitoring, 
energy efficiency and demand-side management, energy storage, or fuel 
cells, among other technologies and services);
     Environmental technologies, such as water supply, 
wastewater treatment, solid waste management, and environmental 
remediation;
     Information and communications technology (ICT) for 
resilient and redundant communication systems, digital and ICT 
application solutions that support resilient climate-smart communities 
(for example, to design or implement urban adaptation initiatives, or 
improve data storage resilience), including cloud computing to make 
data available for use and real-time engagement by multiple 
simultaneous users;
     Water use efficiency, water storage and production 
solutions, and information technology applications for water and 
wastewater operators;
     Resilient transportation systems that are adapted to 
respond to direct and indirect consequences of climate change, such as 
extreme weather and associated population movements;
     Coastal and flood protection;

[[Page 27554]]

     Technologies and services that facilitate the adaptation 
of marine ecosystems to future climate conditions, including future 
ocean temperature and chemistry regimes, or that enable the sustainable 
use of ocean resources and the ocean economy under future climate 
conditions;
     Climate-smart food systems, including agriculture, 
aquaculture, and fisheries;
     Infrastructure and engineering services and sustainable 
building materials, including building assessment and weatherization, 
and nature-based or other innovative or traditional infrastructure 
solutions, designed to provide protection against anticipated climate 
impacts;
     Capital markets solutions including green bonds and 
technology for collecting and aggregating data (including ESG data) 
related to or of value for adaptation and climate resilience;
     Innovative insurance products that address climate 
adaptation and resilience concerns; and
     Sustainable lending and financing products that support 
financing climate adaptation and improved climate resilience.
    For the purpose of this request for public comment, 
``competitiveness'' entails the capacity to produce and deploy 
affordable, reliable, and accessible technologies and compete in global 
markets. USTDA and several of both agencies' interagency partners are 
particularly interested in climate adaptation and resilience-related 
technologies and services that could represent significant 
opportunities for U.S. companies exporting to emerging markets (i.e., 
developing and middle-income countries).
    This request for public comments supports the work of the Trade 
Promotion Coordinating Committee (TPCC) to coordinate U.S. government 
export promotion activities, including activities in support of U.S. 
exports of climate and clean technologies and services. The TPCC is an 
interagency committee chaired by the Secretary of Commerce. It was 
established under the Export Enhancement Act of 1992 to provide a 
unifying framework to coordinate the export promotion and export 
financing activities of the U.S. government, and to develop a 
government-wide strategic plan for carrying out such programs.

Request for Written Comments

    Instructions: This notice is intended to improve ITA's and USTDA's 
understanding of U.S. private sector interests, capabilities, and 
concerns with respect to exports of climate adaptation and resilience-
related technologies and services. This notice is a general 
solicitation for public comments and further sets forth specific topics 
for discussion and comment for both agencies to improve their 
understanding of the current technological landscapes. ITA and USTDA 
seek broad input from all interested stakeholders, including U.S. 
industry, researchers, academia, and civil society. Commenters are 
encouraged to address any or all of the following questions and may 
respond in terms of climate adaptation and resilience broadly, or in 
terms of specific sub-sectors, technologies, and services. To the 
extent commenters choose to respond to the specific questions asked, 
responses may be formatted as the commenter prefers.
    Comments will be reviewed by ITA and USTDA staff and contractors 
and may be used to inform agency priorities and programming. ITA and 
USTDA intend to share the information received through this request 
with partner Federal agencies, consistent with the Biden-Harris 
Administration's whole-of-government approach to implement PREPARE and 
Administration efforts to support U.S. exports. Accordingly, responses 
will be of potential interest to a broader set of U.S. government 
agencies working on climate adaptation, climate resilience, and export 
promotion.

Questions

Opportunities

     1. What climate adaptation and resilience-related technologies and 
services offer the most significant immediate opportunities for U.S. 
exports to foreign countries or regions, including developing and 
middle-income countries?
    2. What climate adaptation and resilience-related technologies and 
services do not currently offer significant immediate opportunities for 
U.S. exports to foreign countries or regions, including developing and 
middle-income countries, but may offer such opportunities within the 
next five to ten years?
    3. Do the needs of climate adaptation and resilience-related 
services exporters (including software and digital service providers) 
differ from exporters of manufactured products? If so, how?

Challenges

    4. What are the principal factors (i.e., economic, technical, 
regulatory, etc.), especially in developing and middle-income export 
markets, that could pose significant barriers to U.S. industry's 
competitiveness with respect to U.S. exports of climate adaptation and 
resilience-related technology and services? What changes are necessary 
for U.S. private sector to enter these markets? What factors inhibit 
expansion and growth in those markets? Please consider challenges 
pertaining to existing and emerging technologies and services, and to 
established and developing markets.
    5. What are the principal factors (i.e., economic, technical, 
regulatory, etc.) that inhibit U.S. industry competitiveness in climate 
adaptation and resilience-related sectors or technologies in which the 
U.S. does not currently have a competitive domestic industry?
    6. Which countries' companies are the main competitors for 
adaptation and resilience-related technologies and services? What is 
the nature of the government assistance they may receive? How might the 
U.S. government level the playing field for U.S. companies facing 
foreign competition?

U.S. Government Solutions

    7. What are the most useful and effective existing tools or 
resources offered by the U.S. government to reduce or remove 
challenges, risks, and barriers to help position U.S. climate 
adaptation and resilience-related technologies for competitiveness in 
the global market?
    8. How can existing tools or resources offered by the U.S. 
government be improved or coordinated to increase their effectiveness 
or make them more accessible to U.S. companies' climate adaptation and 
resilience-related technologies or services?
    9. What are potentially useful new actions the U.S. government 
could take, or information or assistance the U.S. government could 
provide domestically, or through engagement with foreign countries and 
multilateral international organizations, to reduce or remove 
challenges, risks, and barriers or otherwise help position U.S. climate 
adaptation and resilience-related technologies and services for export 
to foreign countries or regions, including developing and middle-income 
countries?
    10. Which foreign countries or regions, including developing and 
middle-income countries, present the greatest market opportunities for 
U.S. exports of climate adaptation and resilience-related technologies 
and services or should be prioritized for engagement by the U.S. 
government? (Note that USTDA's focus is on

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infrastructure development in developing and middle-income countries; 
other Federal departments and agencies including ITA may be able to 
engage in a wider array of countries, depending on their respective 
mandates and authorities.)

Scope

    11. In addition to the illustrative list of climate adaptation and 
resilience-related technologies and services identified above, what 
other adaptation or resilience-related technologies or services with 
opportunities for U.S. exports of goods and services to foreign 
countries or regions, including low and middle-income countries exist, 
if any? What other technologies or services U.S. industry offers that 
increase resilience to climate-related shocks and stresses or support 
adaptation to future climate conditions are not typically considered 
part of ``climate adaptation'' but should be?

Other

    12. What additional issues or challenges related to U.S. exports 
and competitiveness of climate adaptation and resilience-related 
technologies and services not addressed by these questions do you 
believe would be helpful for USTDA and other Federal agencies to 
understand? What would be the most critical actions the government 
could take to address these issues?

    Dated: April 24, 2023.
Man K. Cho,
Deputy Director, Office of Energy & Environmental Industries, 
International Trade Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce.
Eric M. Haxthausen,
Senior Advisor for Climate, Partnerships, and Innovation, U.S. Trade 
and Development Agency.
[FR Doc. 2023-09051 Filed 5-1-23; 8:45 am]
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