October 21st luncheon

Green Technology: Who owns it and Who Wants It

With the Copenhagen climate change conference approaching in December, the question of slowing environmental degradation by making “green” technology more available to developing countries was the overriding topic at a Business Council of the United Nations event.

The luncheon, titled “Greening the Developing World: Tech’s Leading Role – Exploring the Mechanisms of Deploying Green Technology to Developing Countries,” was sponsored by the Siemens Corporation and TIME and organized by BCUN for its members as well as for UN diplomats and nongovernmental organizations. The event was held in the UN Delegates Dining Room on Oct. 21.

Ambassador Thomas Miller, president of UNA-USA and former ambassador to Greece and Bosnia-Herzegovina, welcomed the guests.

“If we want a better climate we must facilitate the transfer of green technologies to the developing world but deciding how to do so is a complex mission,” he said. “We are all hoping for results in Copenhagen in December, but we need to start tackling these questions now.”


The panel discussion, which took place during the luncheon, was moderated by Bryan Walsh, TIME’s “Going Green” columnist, giving the audience of 60 attendees a two-hour primer on the subject.

Panel members were Patricia Sherman, vice president of international affairs at Siemens; Modest Mero, the minister plenipotentiary of the permanent mission of Tanzania; Robert Orr, UN assistant secretary-general for policy coordination and strategic planning in the executive office of Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon; Glenn Prickett, senior fellow at the UN Foundation; Ambassador Hardeep Puri, permanent representative of India to the UN; and Carsten Staur, permanent representative of Denmark to the UN.

All the panelists agreed that the deployment of new digital tools would not only improve the global environment but also provide better living condition in developing countries. The speakers also agreed that the UN’s role in pushing for progress in “disseminating technology,” as Orr put it, is to act as a neutral party in the debate, uniting both economically advanced and developing countries.

Today, the private sector is responsible for more than 60 percent of green tech investments in the world, making the issue of intellectual property rights a hot-button item, according to Patricia Sherman of Siemens.

For many developing countries, however, the cost of using new rights-protected innovations are too high, forcing many to forgo green innovations and instead rely on environmentally unfriendly alternatives, Mero said.

On the flip side, companies who invest in research and development of new technology have a stake in protecting the international property rights regime, saying that a weakening of the legal patent framework could diminish the incentives to create innovations, Sherman said.

The panelists agreed that one of the main issues of deploying green tech involves reviewing mechanisms to create a system that both developing countries and companies could profit from.

Susan Crowley, a consultant and a longtime member of BCUN, said of the event: “There aren’t many opportunities for the public sector and the business world to communicate and interact with each other. Ambassadors and NGOs are often heard in debates like this, but the voice of the business world is often forgotten.

“In this case, when speaking of deploying green tech in developing countries, a dialogue between private and public sector is even more crucial,” she added. “After all, it is the private sector that provides the green development technology. An event like this is a great way of creating such a dialogue.”


For photos from the event please click HERE.