[pp.int.general] Environmentalists and pirates, free information perspective

[Amelia Andersdotter]

 Hello,

I promised a friend I'd compile info on climate and patents. This e-mail
might be a little hefty, because I'm including all the background stuff.
Bear with me.

In June 2009 Danish Folkekirkens Nödhjälp released a report on patents,
technology and development. Their line is not as "hard" as is the PPSE:s,
but they definitely see problems with patent[1]. After some more reading, I
found that UNFCCC has in fact been promoting a more liberal approach to
patent rights for quite some time[2]. In fact, since the Bali conference of
2007[3]. In september, United Nations Development Program (UNDP) released
their World Economic and Social Survey 2009, which held a proposal for
compulsory licensing on green technology to achieve the aim of facilitating
investments in green technology in emerging economies[4].

At this time, I had already proposed that PPSE tried to make patents and
climate "their gig" in autumn 2009, especially up to the Copenhagen Summit
in December[5]. I went looking through old workshops on climate friendly
technologies at UNFCCC and other UN agencies, and found that, of course,
developing nations typically approve of easier tech transf, while European
and North American nations despise the sound of it[6]. In the EU preliminary
reports leading up to COP15, they don't even mention tech transf[7].

Independent thinktank ICTSD acknowledge that lack of tech transf is
a problem when trying to combat climate change[8]. They don't however
necessarily believe this is mostly because of patents[9]. It's good to
understand though, that patents are seen "not as a big problem", but they're
also not seen as facilitators of tech transf at all.

Now, two days ago, the EU released their action plan for COP15[10]. The
action plan is, of course, rather ambitious: the EU are setting high goals
for themselves. But they completely fail to make any commitments as to HOW
they're going to achieve those goals. In fact, the most obvious solution:
investments in green technology, is covered in only one point (p 35) which
says "it's very important with tech transf and we support the
World Meteorological Organisation's 3rd World Conference on Climate
Declaration from september 2009"[11]. The document referred to does not
address any of the issues explained above, and most of all is entirely
disconnected to the problems referred to in ref. [8] to this text.

Why do Pirates care about this? Well. There is a huge consensus on climate
change being a problem in the world. We're not saying we agree with that
consensus, or even that we disagree, but we do have a solution that would
help the people who do agree a lot in their work. And those people are
consistently neglecting that one, obvious solution in favour of setting up
_goals_ and _aims_. What's the use of a 30% reduction aim if you can't
achieve it?

so basically, i'm not saying that the EU goal of facilitating climate
monitoring services is necessarily bad: on the contrary it's much needed to
achieve  their goals. it's just that they consistently seem to be missing
the _other_ aspects of how to achieve goals by stimulating research and
technology transfer and it makse me very annoyed.

[1]
http://www.noedhjaelp.dk/content/download/40630/396760/file/IPR-final-DCA.pdf

[2]
http://spicyipindia.blogspot.com/2008/06/unfccc-requiring-new-patent-regime.html
[3] See [6]
[4] http://www.un.org/esa/policy/wess/wess2009files/wess09/wess2009.pdf
[5] http://en.cop15.dk/
[6]
http://unfccc.int/documentation/documents/advanced_search/items/3594.php?rec=j&priref=600004621#beg
[7] http://ec.europa.eu/environment/climat/future_action.htm
[8] http://ictsd.net/i/publications/50454/ ,
http://ictsd.net/i/publications/50415/
[9] http://ictsd.net/i/events/dialogues/11251/
 [10]
http://www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cms_data/docs/pressdata/en/envir/110634.pdf
[11] http://www.wmo.int/wcc3/documents/WCC-3_Statement_07-09-09_mods.pdf


-- 
Amelia Andersdotter
Kommunikationansvarig UPF
Lissabon-MEP
+46 738436779



-- 
Amelia Andersdotter
Kommunikationansvarig UPF
Lissabon-MEP
+46 738436779
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