Climate change technology transfer: a new paradigm and policy agenda

This article proposes a shift to a paradigm that is more extensive than the current narrow focus on North-South climate change technology transfers, towards a more inclusive 'global' paradigm. An implication of the paradigm shift is that there should be a concomitant expansion of the policy agendas of the international climate and trade regimes. The traditional North-South paradigm of technology transfer ignores the increasing importance of developing countries as sources of advanced climate-friendly technologies, and therefore ignores South-North and South-South transfers. Further, whereas the North-South paradigm has emphasized developing countries' intellectual property rights policies as barriers to technology transfers, the 'global' paradigm focuses attention on trade and investment policy barriers, including developed countries' policies that inhibit technology transfer from developing countries. The analysis is relevant to international negotiations in the post-2012 climate regime, and is also relevant to the future development of the trade regime - not only at the multilateral level in the WTO, but also at the regional and bilateral levels.