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I am an advocate for emerging ‘green’ technologies here in the UK; they have an important role to play in helping us achieve our domestic low carbon and renewable energy targets. Crucially, they also have the potential to create vibrant export markets that, through technology transfer, will assist sustainable development in countries like China and India, which when it comes to saving the planet is obviously the bigger prize. For some years, technology transfer to the developing world to aid sustainable development has been an underlying objective of the flexibility mechanisms of the Kyoto Protocol, notably the clean development mechanism. It is set to be a key topic of the climate change conference at Copenhagen in December. Developing countries are willing to play their part in reducing emissions; they are all too aware of the risks they face from crop failures, storms and droughts. China in particular has recently taken centre stage in the global posturing in the run up to Copenhagen, with indications of new climate change legislation of its own. As always, unfortunately, the discussions will come down to cost and who pays. The developing nations want established economies to make their new technology freely available, on the basis that it is the carbon emissions over the last century or so by the developed countries that have created the mess in which we currently find ourselves. Conversely, we are expecting our emerging ‘green’ technology industries to earn hard cash from new export markets to help drag us out of recession. Perhaps in recognition of these mismatched expectations, India is now suggesting a slightly different approach, signalling it is willing to put some if its own money on the table to develop clean technologies and supplement what it might receive from the developed countries. Regardless of where the money might come from, there is a danger that any deal reached in the Copenhagen negotiations will fail to create the right framework for the development of new technology. Dieter Helm, Professor of Energy Policy at University of Oxford, recently pointed out Europe’s own targets are fixated on 2020 and this has inevitably focused our law and policy responses on delivering short to medium term results. This typically involves reliance on current technology. It is not just EU Directives that look to 2020; somewhat inevitably, so too will the Copenhagen climate negotiations. These discussions replace the Kyoto Protocol which runs to 2012 and the temptation at Copenhagen will be to focus discussions on the eight years from 2013 to 2020. Emerging technologies typically need longer to come to fruition. Without a deal from Copenhagen which provides the right investment signals for green technology, neither side of the argument will get want they want, and we’ll all be losers as a result. For further information please contact: Andrew Whitehead, Partner
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