Changing the climate in ’08

Some expensive options already exist in the developed world. The challenge that looms ahead is how they get transferred to countries that are the most vulnerable or are growing at the fastest rates and cannot afford them. At Bali, the rich nations reluctantly agreed on a programme to scale up the level of investment for technology transfer to developing countries. The Bali roadmap says the exact mechanism will have to be evolved in the next two years. Going by the debates, it seems to be moving towards financial flows from the haves to the have-nots.

The approach adopted by the HGP (Human Genome Project) could be useful in showing how key technologies could be evolved for the public good. If the developed countries (largely responsible for the bulk of emissions) could take leadership and collaborate with the scientists of developing countries — both in providing institutional as well as financial support — technology transfer as a concept would be change agent.

The HGP’s value in science is unparalleled. It is sometimes equated to man landing on the moon. It is believed to be a science that will provide the foundation for much of 21st century medicine. It is its social construct that holds important lessons for all science policy. From its inception, the HGP has been a model for inter-agency and international cooperation. It is hailed as an unprecedented success in terms of the scope for collaboration between scientists of different nations. The International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium included hundreds of scientists at 20 sequencing centres in China, France, Germany, Great Britain, Japan and the US.

Although spearheaded by the US, it is the international contributions that have propelled it forward. The single largest public-sector sequencing centre in the world is not in the US but in the UK: the Sanger Centre. In the context of climate change, it is this kind of collaboration that will serve humanity better — much more effectively in fact than countries fighting over commas, full stops and text that ends up meaning very little.

There will be, in the forms of technology transfer that are being debated now, several insurmountable problems: the actual deployment, the investment flows and a regulatory framework required for the various technologies will take years to be figured out.

However, it is not hard to imagine climate change policymakers proving far more efficient if they follow the HGP model of collaboration. The scientists in China and India are as competent to find low carbon solutions as their western counterparts. Take the case of fine-tuning technology that will help replace carbon-emitting petrol and diesel with clean hydrogen. There have been significant initiatives in the past by private companies, but they just don’t add up. The technological gap between nations is too wide. Why should Indian scientists be working on the storage solution (a big technological challenge with hydrogen) when it has already been resolved by a Toyota engineer?

If reports of IPCC, with its scary projections, are to be believed, there is no time to reinvent the wheel. For those who believe that public funding and putting knowledge in public domain kills scientific innovation, the HGP experience is exactly the opposite. The market in genomics has taken off after the basic science has been resolved.

Lander, while speaking to The Indian Express at Broad Institute, said that it was the strong emphasis placed on the sharing of all genomics data that enabled scientists to harness the power of genomics. All the sequence data generated by the HGP has been deposited in public data bases and made freely available to scientists around the world, with no restrictions on its use or redistribution.

It is subsequent to this that companies have started using this decoding of genes to tailor-make this information into patentable products. Yes, the final medication or formulation will be patented but not the basic science. In fact, this led to costs coming down drastically for what was once called an expensive science. Despite this, genetics continues to remain an attractive option for private pharma companies.

The other big question is that of leadership. The US has been obstinate on climate change but has shown leadership earlier. Not just in the HGP, but also in the setting up a new structure to help mobilise the global fight against HIV/AIDS. It was in June 2001, the United Nations with strong support from the US, decided to establish an independent mechanism to coordinate resources to combat the HIV pandemic worldwide. The HIV vaccine project being run simultaneously in 30 countries is proof of the US-led initiative. The same Bush administration has been at the forefront of this effort with an initial commitment of $200 million in the first year of the fund.

The world of climate change negotiations is divided into two: the wealthy emitters and the vulnerable poor. Just like disease, the climate change binds citizens of all nations. There is strong enough reason to look at global solutions to a global problem. This has been said before: we must recognise that the greatest challenge of the 21st century is not a scientific or technological challenge: it is the social challenge of bringing change to those who need it the most. It is with this in mind that the negotiators go forward towards 2009 when the final successor of Kyoto would be adopted.

sonu.jain@expressindia.com