[p2p-research] Open Source Development for Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation

[Liam Rattray]

Good afternoon all,

Some of you who are following the UNFCCC climate negotiations may know
that there is currently an impasse between "developed" (i.e. US & EU)
and "developing" (i.e. China and India) over intellectual property
rights and the transfer of technologies for climate change mitigation
and adaptation. I put quotes around develop* because it begs the
question of who is "developing" and what we're "developing" towards.

I think that open source R&D, licensing and commercialization of what
the UNFCCC calls "environmentally-sound technologies (EST)" can
provide an alternative to the proprietary intellectual property
licensing vs. compulsory (state-mandated) licensing of EST for
diffusion and absorption of these technologies in deprived communities
in both developed and developing nations.

I released my working paper on Open Source Development and Climate
Change with a paper, "How Open Source Development Can Resolve the
North-South
Intellectual Property Conflict in UNFCCC Negotiations: A Bipartisan
Technology Transfer Pathway" yesterday and I would like to hear what
people think about my arguments and proposals.

http://openfarmtech.org/index.php?title=Open_Source_Development

In it I propose an Open Development Fund to be administered by the
UNFCCC to provide grants to networked collaborative research and
development immunities like the Factor E Farm in Missouri that create
"environmentally-sound technologies" that provide for greenhouse gas
mitigation and climate adaptation as part of an overall bipartisan
(Annex-I and G77+China) proposal for Open Source
Development. This fund would make equity investments or mesocredit
business loans in local businesses that commercialize the open sourced
technologies developed by communities affiliated with the fund. In
this respect the necessary economic and information linkage between
target communities and research communities would be fostered.

One way or another I want to build a p2p development fund, be it
either through an international governmental body, like the UNFCCC,
which could provide for an immediate flush of funds or through an
independent non-profit which would spend many years building up the
endowment it relies on to provide funding.

Cheers,
Liam Rattray
Undergraduate Research Assistant, Technology Policy and Assessment Center
School of Public Policy, Georgia Institute of Technology
liamratt at gmail.com