US draws line with China on climate technology

Access to green technology is becoming a growing stumbling block in global efforts to fight climate change, with US lawmakers bristling at what they see as China’s attempt to “steal” US know-how.

China and India have led calls for developed nations to share technology to help them battle global warming as the clock ticks to a December meeting in Copenhagen meant to seal a successor to the Kyoto Protocol.
The US House of Representatives this month unanimously voted to make it US policy to prevent the Copenhagen treaty from “weakening” US intellectual property rights on a wind, solar and other eco-friendly technologies.

Congressman Rick Larsen, a member of President Barack Obama’s Democratic Party who authored the measure, said the United States was caught between concern both over the climate and its soaring trade deficit with China.

“The US can be part of China’s solution for the problems that they admittedly have with energy efficiency and emissions. And I think legitimately we want to be part of that solution — we’re the two largest emitters of C02 in the world,” Larsen said.

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