Patents and trade policy in the era of climate change

- "Calls for patent-free green technologies on the one hand and for trade barriers on the other highlight the deep rift between developing and industrial countries:"
- "In the debate about climate protection, there have recently been calls for the abolition of patent protection for climate-friendly technologies to allow faster dissemination of these technologies among the world’s poorer countries."
- "However, in an economic system based on private property, patent protection is seen as an important precondition for innovation and should therefore not be considered for abolition in this field of technology either."
- "Similarly, demands by a number of industrial countries that climate tariffs or similar barriers to trade should be introduced for countries with less ambitious climate policies must be rejected. Such barriers would probably trigger countermeasures and dampen these countries’ climate protection efforts."
- "There are possible solutions to both the issue of patent protection and trade policy which would yield better results than the calls for patent-free green tech and/or climate tariffs. Technology transfer could be financed via climate funds replenished by the industrial countries. To avoid competitive distortions and shifts in production to countries without ambitious climate policies, (temporary) exceptions to climate regulation could be a sensible alternative for certain sectors of the economy."
DeutscheBank Economics&Politics 20100630