Contours of Technology Transfer

International efforts to encourage technology cooperation and transfer for environmental protection began in the 1970s. At the 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, political leaders called upon the global community to make technologies more available to developing countries. ¹ Since the beginning of the 1980s, technology transfer has become an increasingly important issue due to mounting global environmental problems. Developing countries demanded technology transfer as a condition of participation in the control measures of the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, and today technology transfer is included in over 80 regional and international agreements, including Agenda 21, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Kyoto Protocol, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Environmental Strategy, the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (CCD). ²