India is pushing for a climate-friendly tech transfer to developing countries

T.V. Padma in SciDev.net: India has proposed that the climate talks in Durban next week should be refocused onto technology transfer, equity and trade barriers.

The move comes amidst concerns over the sidelining of these issues because of increasingly heated political debates on climate change between developing and developed countries, India's environment minister, Jayanthi Natarajan, said last week (17 November) at a media briefing.

According to the Delhi-based nongovernmental organisation Centre for Science and Environment, proposals were made at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP 16), in Cancun, Mexico, last year, to set up a technology executive committee and a climate technology centre and network.

But the final agreement does not mention intellectual property rights (IPR), "which means patented technologies cannot be accessed", the centre's director, Sunita Narain, told a different media briefing also held last week (16 November)....

Some solar panels in India, shot by Challiyan, Wikimedia Commons