Can Creative Commons Halt Climate Change?

Celeste LeCompte
Thursday, July 16, 2009
1 Response

Intellectual property issues are becoming a lynchpin of climate negotiations as the countdown to the Copenhagen climate change conference continues. While there's still some disagreement over how aggressive climate targets need to be, there's a growing consensus among participating countries that clean technologies will play a critical role in reaching whatever targets are set. But how those technologies are developed, deployed and distributed is still a thorny issue. A recent partnership between a Nike-led coalition of companies and Creative Commons could help the U.S. and developing nations forge an agreement on the role intellectual property will play. […]

Question of the Week

How can companies protect their business while accelerating climate action?

Featured Responses

Josie Garthwaite

2009/07/16 at 12:48

Drug makers have been able to do pretty well for themselves while providing certain medicines at low cost in developing countries. That's been largely through compulsory licensing, but maybe Creative Commons will offer an alternative.

Wal-Mart’s Green Rating: A Boon for Carbon Management Software

While Katie's skeptical about the opportunity in the home energy management software market, she's more bullish on the opportunity for business-focused carbon and supply-chain management software. With this strong incentive being delivered by Wal-Mart, I tend to agree.

Submitted by Celeste LeCompte
Hybrid Squared: Ingenious Energy-Generating Bike Rental System

Maybe I'm late enough to the game on this I shouldn't bother to share, but this is a pretty cool concept. Ultracapacitors (from companies like EEStor) are all the rage these days.

Submitted by Celeste LeCompte
GM Launches a New Social Network for the Volt

I'm looking forward to reading more about this from Josie over on Earth2Tech later, but here's the initial news item. Want to let Josie know what you think about the idea? Tweet her @journojos.

Submitted by Celeste LeCompte
U.S. & China Team Up on Cleantech Research: Bane or Boon for IP?

China and the U.S. are in a complicated dance around cleantech leadership, from innovation and intellectual property to manufacturing. Let's hope that the end result is aggressive innovation on all sides, something akin to the U.S.-Russia space program rumble of yore.

Submitted by Celeste LeCompte
Cloud Computing Highlighted as an Emissions-Reduction Strategy

Illinois company Greenspace says NetSuite customers can save $10,000 a year in energy savings by using the cloud ("highly efficient and optimized") to meet their computing needs.

Submitted by Celeste LeCompte