New Delhi, October 22
In the run-up to climate talks in Copenhagen in December, India today said climate-friendly and environmentally-sound technologies should be viewed as global-public goods.

In his inaugural address at a high-level conference on ‘Climate Change: Technology Development and Transfer’, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said technology and its diffusion would be a key element in meeting the challenge of climate change.

Asserting that developing countries “cannot and will not” compromise on development, the Prime Minister said developed countries, however, needed to make a serious effort to bring their per capita emissions within tolerable levels.

Making a strong pitch for diffusion of technology, the Prime Minister said innovations in “green” technology should be shared with developing countries in much the same way as HIV/AIDS drugs. “We need to act across all the stages of the technology cycle from research leading to new breakthroughs, to the development and adoption of new technologies and to the transfer of existing and mature technologies,’’ he said.

Citing a precedent in the case of pharmaceutical technologies being made available for HIV/AIDS patients in developing countries, he said: “We need technology solutions that are appropriate, affordable and truly effective… The moral case of a similar approach for protecting our planet and its life support system is equally compelling,” he stressed.

In fact, labelling new, clean-energy discoveries “global-public goods”, he said attached legal copyright regime should balance rewards for innovators with the need to promote the common good of humanity. “Suitable mechanisms must be found that will provide incentives for developing new technologies while also facilitating their deployment in developing countries at affordable cost,” he said.

The Prime Minister categorically specified that developing nations will not sacrifice their development in negotiations for a new climate change deal. “Developing countries cannot and will not compromise on development. But, developing nations also need to do their bit to keep emission footprint within levels that are sustainable and equitable,” he said.

Notably, transfer of clean-energy technology will be a key issue at Copenhagen where talks are aimed at hammering out a new global climate treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol that expires in 2012.

India and China are members of the G77 group of developing nations, which wants developed countries to provide them with finance and technology to help reduce harmful emissions causing climate change.

The two countries signed a climate change agreement on Wednesday that included a commitment to cooperating on technology development and agreed to work on slowing the growth of GHGs, but resisted making them limits binding and subject to international monitoring.

The world’s most populous countries have refused to sign on any binding targets for emissions cuts, arguing that it would restrict their economic growth. They insist developed nations should shoulder the main responsibility for mitigating global warming. The Prime Minister also spoke on threat to the survival of small island nations in view of rising temperatures.

In the presence of President of Maldives Mohammad Nasheed, one of the most eloquent champions in raising awareness across the world of the threat to the survival of small island states from global warming, he said: “We are deeply conscious of the vulnerability faced by least developed countries and island states. We too have large and vulnerable populations living in our island chains and in low-lying coastal areas. Whatever modest capabilities we possess to tackle this problem will be at the disposal of countries like the Maldives.”