Climate Change and Intellectual Property Highlights

Governments are currently negotiating a post-2012 agreement under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), guided by the Bali Action Plan (BAP), to set out medium and long term cooperative actions on adaptation, mitigation, finance and technology. The 22 June 2009 version of the UNFCCC negotiating from the Ad-hoc Working Group on Longterm Cooperative Action (AWGLCA) includes numerous proposals focussed on R&D, innovation, investment, deployment and transfer of ESTs. In particular, it contains several proposals targeting intellectual property rights (IPR) as a major factor in the above. The International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) strongly believes that IPR protection is indispensable in supporting growth in technology innovation, development and dissemination envisioned by proposals for post-2012 action.