Transfer of technology is one way to promote both environmental quality and economic welfare. Robert W. Fri, president of Resources for the Future (RFF), and Chester L. Cooper, coordinator of RFF' s international programs, have considered how assistance from the developed world could be usefully applied to environmental and developmental problems in the developing world through technology transfer based on specific guidelines.
Sustainable international development involves environmental protection at both the local and global levels. Such protection depends on close cooperation among industrialized and developing nations in regard to technology. The recommendations below focus on how available international resources could be applied more usefully to local economic development and to environmental problems in the former USSR, Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America. The emphasis in these suggestions is on the near term and rests on a belief that the problems to be addressed cannot wait for the emergence of new technologies, institutions, and international frameworks, and on a conviction that the lessons gained by acting now will prove essential to the success of the long-term programs and enterprises that presumably will emerge from UNCED. Five guidelines are offered here for a near-term program of international environmental technology transfer.
First, both the public and private sectors of donor nations should encourage technology transfers that meet not only local environmental concerns, but also serve existing national economic development needs. Any process or product that reduces resource inputs and minimizes the production of harmful residuals is of interest in this regard. Since such processes and products are already the stuff of commerce, the transfer of technologies that benefit both economic well-being and environmental quality can be stimulated without delay.
Second, the unique advantages the public sector can exercise to facilitate technology transfers to meet both economic and environmental needs should be utilized. Specialized government staffs could "broker" contacts between potential suppliers and recipients and identify technology demands. Information clearinghouses could help developing countries find private-sector technology to meet their demands. In some cases, government-business partnerships could facilitate the transfer of technology. Finally, governments could set minimum environmental standards for technology sales to discourage exportation of environmentally hazardous technologies.
Third, the capacity of developing nations to plan, acquire, operate, maintain, and manage the technologies they need should be expanded. Governments, academia, nongovernment organizations (NGOs), and business could all contribute in this regard.
Fourth, financing on a bilateral basis should be encouraged. This might be accomplished with respect to reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions along the following lines: since a country committed to invest in CO2 reductions will want to do so as cost-effectively as possible, it might pay another country the extra cost of a solar-electric power plant and take credit at home for an equivalent CO2 reduction. Such arrangements could enlarge the flow of technology aimed at mitigating greenhouse gas emissions well before there is international agreement on limiting these emissions.
Finally, steps should be taken to reduce commercial obstacles to technology transfer. Progress is being made in this regard, but for some nations and some technologies such obstacles remain significant.
For some individual technology transfer initiatives, national or multinational institutions should provide international leadership. Some initiatives have merit aside from global environmental protection. These include the promotion of increased energy efficiency, especially in the larger, coal-rich countries; reforestation, especially in tropical regions; population stabilization, especially in the Third World; faster development of nonfossil energy systems; and the movement of fossil energy systems down the CO2 emissions ladder—from coal to oil to natural gas.
Other initiatives may also be worth pursuing. An enterprise for organizing and coordinating technology transfers could be sponsored and managed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on behalf of the international community. Japan's RITE laboratory for studying global change issues could evolve into an international venture for the development of new environmental technologies. An energy efficiency research and development program primarily directed toward Eastern Europe could be established through a cooperative arrangement between the Budapest Environment Center and either the European Coummunity or the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. A global program for addressing CO2 emissions through economic incentives and disincentives could be developed by a task force of international economists. The United States, Canada, and Japan could collaborate on a technical assistance program. (The U.S. Agency for International Development has significant funding, expertise, and well-established field stations. Canada's International Development Research Center has impressive credentials and much experience. Japan has large funds but lacks adequate overseas assistance establishments and field experience.) Innovative debt-for-environmental protection exchanges between creditor and debtor countries could be created. With NGOs and private foundations, regional development banks could identify and meet the need for building indigenous technological capacity. Finally, a consortium of nations such as Brazil, China, and India could provide assistance with respect to low-tech agriculture and conservation techniques to other developing countries and the industrialized world.
A version of this article appeared in print in the January 1992 issue of Resources magazine.
A version of this article appeared in print in the January 1992 issue of Resources magazine.
