Technology Transfer of Clean Technology

The NYT today has an article on the UN's Clean Development Mechanism, part of the Kyoto Protocol that helps developed countries offset their carbon emissions by paying for non-polluting projects in developing countries. Clean Power That Reaps a Whirlwind.

Although the article focuses largely on the dispute about the funding priorities of the project. More than two-thirds of the CDM projects go to China -- which will this year or next surpass the US as the world's leading carbon emitter -- with most of the rest going to Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, even South Korea. Less than $150m out of the $4.8b transferred in 2002 went to Africa.

I think that many of the deciding factors of not investing in Africa are valid -- higher capital risk, poor infrastructure and capital management systems that can actually DO anything with the money. That said, Africa must receive development aid and the UN should focus on those pockets where the necessary conditions do exist, Southern Africa, Mali, etc.

Complaints that sophisticated Chinese are probably gaming the system are also probably valid. But when you are the world's biggest coal user, you deserve the extra attention.

In the main, this program has to be considered a big step in the right direction. Technology transfer and direct subsidy of leapfrog technologies by the industrial north are going to be crucial to helping the developing world avoid the pitfalls and dead-ends that we have gone through. It will also prevent global carbon emissions from climbing even as the North decreases its own carbon footprint.