New at Reason
Ronald Bailey reports back from the ongoing Bali climate conference.
Comments to "New at Reason":
Packer Stan | December 13, 2007, 5:24pm | #
One of the hottest topics being negotiated the COP-13 is technology transfer.Wouldn't it be interesting if a technology that reduced GHG was transferred and just so happened to also enable the building of nuclear weapons?
Paul | December 13, 2007, 6:34pm | #
If that weren't enough there are rumblings among poor country negotiators that they want the right to simply seize the patents (nicely called "compulsory licensing" in trade talks) and make the equipment themselves.I'm not sure I buy the fact that the only barrier to these poorer countries adopting and building this technology is a patent.
The Third World | December 13, 2007, 6:52pm | #
I'm not sure I buy the fact that the only barrier to these poorer countries adopting and building this technology is a patent.Sure it is. It's all you greedy industrialized nations, selfishly hoarding your technology that keeps us poor, starving and dependent.
It's your fault and you should feel guilty and send us money. And food. And medicine. And technology we can't maintain. Either that or some weapons. Actually, we'd prefer the weapons.
Eric Gisin | December 13, 2007, 6:55pm | #
If current models predict Greenland's ice sheet might melt in 2000-3000 years (2-3 mm/yr), why doesn't IPCC 4th report include this info?Hardly the catastrophy the Gorean doomsday cult prophesized.
colonel_Angus | December 13, 2007, 7:21pm | #
Greenland will be more habitable once again, just like it was when the vikings lived there, during another NATURAL warm period long ago.I realize this group probably knows this, but 1998 was NOT the record year most think it was. Scott McIntyre pointed out a Y2K error in NASA's data so the hottest year was not 1998, but 1934. Just saying ...
Joel H | December 13, 2007, 9:23pm | #
I'm not sure I buy the fact that the only barrier to these poorer countries adopting and building this technology is a patent.In the cases of pharmaceuticals and software, patents and copyrights might not be the only barriers, but they are certainly major ones. Why should poor countries respect these government-granted monopolies?
The Snob | December 13, 2007, 10:03pm | #
"Why should poor countries respect these government-granted monopolies?"Perhaps for the same reasons they are granted in the first place. Pharmaceutical companies don't invest as much in a lot of tropical disease research because there's a lot more money in addressing baldness or impotence, freedom from which even the EU hasn't yet declared a fundamental human right.
That said, I would support a subsidy program of some sort to help with the costs of market-priced technology. To the extent that this is *global* warming, it may be cheaper to eliminate a ton of carbon output in Bangladesh than in France or Japan.
McAristotle | December 13, 2007, 11:06pm | #
Hmmn.. not rewarding invention and threatening to underpay for the technology...that really incentivized a cure for AIDS and Malaria!..Hey, it basically killed research .Alan Vanneman | December 13, 2007, 11:07pm | #
"Is threatening to confiscate their patents really the way to encourage companies and inventors to invest in creating the innovative low-carbon energy technologies that world is being told are vital to stopping dangerous climate change?"In the 19th century, the U.S. did not "threaten" to confiscate patents of individuals and corporations from other countries, it did so. That is, the U.S. did not recognize the patents and copyrights of other nations. Best-selling authors like Charles Dickens and Walter Scott collected no royalties on copies of their books published in the U.S., and British advances in textile machinery, iron and steel forging, etc. appeared in the U.S. via the "five finger discount." Hey, if it was good enough for us, why isn't it good enough for the rest of the world?
Joel H | December 13, 2007, 11:30pm | #
That said, I would support a subsidy program of some sort to help with the costs of market-priced technology.Again I'm assuming that technology patents actually represent a significant barrier to the developing world's infrastructure. But would a massive publicly-funded R&D program with any discoveries guaranteed patent-free, free to be adopted by anyone at all, be the sort of subsidy you'd support? We almost have this system in place... but patents on publicly (and privately) funded research at U.S. universities often serve as a profit source for the universities and corporations or startups.
Ron Bailey | December 13, 2007, 11:46pm | #
AV: Well, then let them steal the patents fair and square without benefit of an international treaty and a pot of rich country tax payer money to pay for it all.Joel H: You're onto something. A Nigerian negotiator here went on and on about how intellectual property rights was holding developing countries back from addressing climate change. A journalist (not me) asked her to give some examples. She looked rueful for a moment and then admitted that she couldn't name any examples.
3W | December 14, 2007, 12:34am | #
I fail to see how stealing the work of others (as far as I am concerned, using someone else's work without their permission is stealing) will help countries that don't have the infrastructure to use them. A better solar panel or wind turbine won't help unless there is a well-built power grid. Unless the Third World can prove they are capable of making good use of these patents, I fail to see what this will accomplish other than discouraging scientists from even attempting to come up with technologies these nations can use.Alan Vanneman,
If policy in the 19th century is a good enough justification for policy in the 21st century, does that mean we can simply keep using oil as they did back then?
Joel H | December 14, 2007, 1:22am | #
A better solar panel or wind turbine won't help unless there is a well-built power grid.Huh? Both of those things produce electricity locally without a grid at all.
He wasn't that far off though, the Southern Hemisphere has been cooling. Had he been basing his data from the Antarctica stations he would have certainly won that bet.
If from 1750-1945 the United States had been held to following the same intellectual property laws which are now being enforced against developing nations, it is highly unlikely that the U.S. would be the world's wealthiest and most powerful nation today.
James | December 14, 2007, 2:05pm | #
"That said, I would support a subsidy program of some sort to help with the costs of market-priced technology."This is the whole point of the 'free market'...steal from the public commonwealth and then patent it and take all the profits for yourself...oh and then whine to others about intellectual property rights and too much investment in gov't services.
why do these climate change panalists sound like the villians in Ayn Rand novels?
braddles | December 15, 2007, 6:18pm | #
[Michaels had bet "that the 10-year period beginning in January 1998 and extending through December 2007 will show a statistically significant downward trend in the monthly satellite record of global temperatures." He lost that bet.]Hang on a minute. If you take the MSU RSS satellite temperatures (the most thoroughly checked version of the data) from January 1998 to November 2007 and make a graph, the trend is MINUS 0.04 degress Celsius per decade. In other words, a slight cooling.
Obviously, the December figures are not in yet, but if they are similar to November, the overall trend will be MINUS 0.05 degrees.
Someone tell me, how exactly did he lose the bet?