NUSA DA, Bali – Developing countries appear to have snagged a second victory last Thursday as negotiators agreed to a “strategic programme” to facilitate the transfer of technology from the north to the south, as part of efforts to stem the tide of climate change.

The Global Environmental Facility (GEF) – as the financial mechanism under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) – is to consult with stakeholders to hammer out the details of the programme, which also embraces south-south transfers.

“(The GEF) is to elaborate a strategic programme to scale up the level of investment for technology transfer to help the developing countries address their needs for environmentally-ound technologies, specifically considering how such a strategic programme might be implemented along with its relationship to existing and emerging activities and initiatives regarding technology transfer,” said a draft report of the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI).

Technology transfer was among the four key areas that negotiators were to come to a decision on during the two weeks of talks in Bali. The Bali deliberations comprised the 13th Conference of the Parties (COP 13) to the UNFCCC, and the third meeting of the Conference of the Parties serving as the Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (COP/MOP).

The other areas were adaptation, mitigation and financing. Up to Friday, negotiators had also reached a consensus on the Adaptation Fund, which is to be run by a body other than the GEF, whose management of the fund a number of least developed countries (LDCs) were against.

The fund, set up under the 1997 Kyoto Protocol several years ago, could not be operationalised until now precisely because countries could not agree on how it was to be governed. It is to help finance the adjustment of countries in the developing world, including Jamaica, to adjust to climate change, which this year alone caused the death of thousands and several billions in property damage or loss due to the effects of hurricanes and cyclones.

It is financed by a two per cent levy from the value on credits from projects undertaken under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) that is provided for under Kyoto. The CDM allows Annex 1 (First World countries) to undertake green house gas emission projects in developing countries to earn credits to offset targets they agreed to under Kyoto.

Under the technology transfer arrangement, the areas identified for funding through existing provisions under the UNFCCC are:

. the implementation of technology needs assessment and demonstration activities;

. joint research and development programmes and activities in the development of new technologies;

. incentives for private sector and enabling environments for technology transfer; and

. licences to support the access to and the transfer of low-carbon technologies and know-how.

There is also an allowance for a window for, among other things, a venture capital fund related to, or possibly located in a multilateral financial institution.