Ahead of the Copenhagen Summit next month, India has made a key move to wrest a climate change initiative, with an offer to set up a global innovation centre for development and transfer of green technologies.
“India’s offer to set up the innovation centre relates to the issue of governance (of technologies),” Director General of the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), Francis Gurry said.
Explaining the overlap between climate change and the intellectual property rights, the head of the WIPO said, the transfer and affordability of the patented green technology would be one of the tricky issues at the Copenhagen Summit.
The summit of global leaders under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) on December 7 is meant to craft a new international agreement to reduce greenhouse gases.
One of the proposals likely to be on the table, Gurry said, would be a common fund to be used for achieving innovation in the area of green technology. The council of European ministers has agreed to provide USD 50 billion.
However, the question remains as to how this fund would be used. Gurry said, India’s proposal for the innovation centre could gel with this idea.
The WIPO chief, during his four-day visit here, met Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh and Environment Minister, Jairam Ramesh among others.
