Technology Transfer Institutions in Global Climate Governance: The Tension between Equity Principles and Market Allocation

• Date: 01 November 2014
• Published date: 01 November 2014
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/reel.12075

Technology Transfer Institutions in Global Climate

Governance: The Tension between Equity

Principles and Market Allocation

Jeffrey McGee* and Joseph Wenta

Technology transfer to developing countries has been

identified as essential to mitigate greenhouse gas

emissions and adapt to climate change. However,

existing analyses underplay the influence of wider

normative principles in shaping institutions for tech-

nology transfer in global climate governance. This

article uses discourse analysis to explore the ideas and

assumptions underlying technology transfer institu-

tions both within and outside the United Nations

Framework Convention on Climate Change

(UNFCCC). This discourse analysis identifies four key

periods in the development of technology transfer

institutions in global climate governance. In the first

three periods, technology transfer institutions embody

discourses ranging from green governmentality to

deregulatory ecological modernization. In the fourth

period, the post-Copenhagen Technology Mechanism

embodies a broader discursive landscape that paral-

lels a more fundamental contest over the extent to

which redistributive claims are allowed to shape insti-

tutions of global climate governance.

INTRODUCTION

As the world confronts the challenge of dangerous

climate change,1a tension between the maintenance of

existing socio-economic practices and the necessity to

take meaningful action with respect to greenhouse gas

emissions is apparent. This challenge is most obvious

when the need for effective action to mitigate green-

house gas emissions and to adapt to the negative impacts

of climate change is contrasted with the pressure on

governments to maintain economic growth and increase

material prosperity. This is evident in the political neces-

sity for governments to achieve an economic growth rate

of more than 2% to avoid rising unemployment, falling

tax revenues and claims of economic failure.2In the past,

continued economic expansion has been closely coupled

with increased fossil fuel use and greenhouse gas emis-

sions.3However, the global community has recognized

that failure to achieve a significant reduction in green-

house gas emissions by the middle of this century will

likely bring severe negative climate change impacts.4

Further, it is not immediately clear that significant

climate change mitigation is compatible with continued

economic growth.5Thus, the limitless expansionary

dynamic which underpins modern economic systems is

a significant challenge in a world that is limited in terms

of the amount of further greenhouse gases that might be

safely absorbed by the atmosphere.

Policy makers have looked to developments in technol-

ogy as a way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions while

maintaining economic growth and remaining competi-

tive with trading partners.6Some countries in Northern

Europe and East Asia have made significant progress

in improving the carbon intensity of their economies

* Corresponding author: Jeffrey McGee, University of Newcastle –

Law, McMullin Building Callaghan Newcastle Newcastle, Australia

New South Wales 2305, Australia.

Email: jeffrey.mcgee@newcastle.edu.au

1See United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change

(New York, 9 May 1992; in force 21 March 1994) (‘UNFCCC’), Article

2, which states that greenhouse gas emissions need to be stabilized

so as to avoid dangerous climate change. The latest attempts to give

meaning to dangerous climate change are found in the Copenhagen

Accord and Cancun Agreements (see n. 9 below), which recognize

(with reference to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovern-

mental Panel on Climate Change) that human-induced climate

change should not increase average surface temperature any more

than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. See also A.

Jordan et al., ‘Going beyond Two Degrees? The Risks and Opportu-

nities of Alternative Options’, 13:6 Climate Policy (2013), 751.

2T. Jackson, Prosperity without Growth: Economics for a Finite

Planet (Earthscan, 2009), at 62–64. See also A. Jordan et al., n. 1

above, at 761.

3R. Garnaut, Garnaut Review of Climate Change: Final Report (Cam-

bridge University Press, 2008), at 4–5.

4IPCC, ‘Summary for Policymakers’, in: Climate Change 2013: The

Physical Science Basis – Contribution of Working Group I to the Fifth

Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate

Change (Cambridge University Press, 2013).

5N. Stern, The Economics of Climate Change: The Stern Review

(Cambridge University Press, 2007), at 231–233; K. Anderson and A.

Bows, ‘Reframing the Climate Change Challenge in Light of Post-

2000 Emission Trends’, 366:1882 Philosophical Transactions of the

Royal Society A (2008), 3863, at 3878 (citing Stern); K. Anderson and

A. Bows, ‘Beyond “Dangerous” Climate Change: Emission Scenarios

for a New World’, 369:1934 Philosophical Transactions of the Royal

Society A (2011), 20, at 40; J. Bellamy Foster, B. Clark and R. York,

The Ecological Rift (Monthly Review Press, 2010), at 151–164.

6See, e.g., World Bank, World Development Report 2010: Develop-

ment and Climate Change (World Bank, 2010), at 287–288, 291. See

also President Obama, ‘Remarks by the President on Climate

Change’ (Georgetown University, Washington, DC, 26 June 2013),

found at: <http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-off‌ice/2013/06/25/

remarks-president-climate-change>.

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Review of European Community & International Environmental Law

RECIEL 23 (3) 2014. ISSN 2050-0386 DOI: 10.1111/reel.12075

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