Alternative Energy/CC, TT and IPRs
ICTSD, 2008. Climate Change, Technology Transfer and Intellectual Property Rights, Copenhagen: International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development. ICTSD, 2008 - Discusses the debates around the Copenhagen meeting of the UNFCCC, which will take place in the winter of 2009 and is planned to be the meeting where the Kyoto Protocol replacement will be instituted. The period up to this meeting has been the Bali Action Plan, which is so named due to the Bali meeting that took place in 2007 where the UNFCCC countries set out the elements of the new protocol that would have to be decided by the Copenhagen meeting. Paramount to these discussions and to the focus of this paper is the debate around technology transfer to developing countries and how IP may help or hinder this process. A clear and emphatic pint made by the paper is that there have not been enough studies conducted about the effects of IP on tech transfer and alternative energy technology innovation. The suggestion of the paper authors is that provisions from the WTO TRIPS Agreement could provide the necessary framework for effective tech transfer. Central to this discussion is the use of compulsory licensing. Other options that the paper recommends are financial mechanisms such as a “Multilateral Technology Acquisition Fund,” which would buy IP rights for transfer to developing countries; prizes as incentives for alternative energy technology innovation; institutional arrangements for open or collaborative innovation similar to the USA-China collaboration recently finalized by the Secretary of Energy, Steven Chu.