CLIMATE CHANGE FINANCE UNIT

Hi Folks,
I was excited to note the creation of the Climate Change Finance Unit within the Ministry of Finance, Government of India. They seem to be working on preparing Working Papers.
I am very keen on what they do in the coming years and I shall keep a close watch.

Trends in Climate technology Patents

Hi Friends,

I have been working on a report on the barriers that exist in technology transfer and those technologies with special relevance to Climate change.

I plan to share with you excerpts of my findings in this post. Let me know what you think.

What have other researchers said?

Martin Khor notes that developed countries have an overwhelming dominance in patents world-wide, with the EU, US and Japan together holding 76.7% of renewable energy patents, whereas, China and Korea together held a meagre 5.2% share. 

Robert Lee et.al report on the patent ownership of six renewable energy technologies, including wind, solar PV, concentrated solar power, biomass to electricity, cleaner coal and CCS) concludes that the US, Japan and Germany are the foremost in innovation. 

Damodaran (My boss@IIMB) in his 2011 article on CCS technologies (That is carbon capture and storage) has found that majority of patents are dominated by patents related to capture processes and methods.

In automobile pollution technologies, the BRIICs countries had only 0.7% share whereas the the EU (49%), Japan (31%) and the US (14%) held highest share.

What have I found?

A few figures first

I have classified Solar technologies into 3 generations, based on an IRENA report on the technologies. 

First generation photovoltaic cells which are in commercial use includes crystalline Silicon (c-Si) either single or polycrystalline.

Second generation cells which are in early market deployment phase include thin-film PV technologies which include amorphous and micromorph Silicon (a-Si), Cadmium Telluride (CdTe), Copper-Indium-Diselenide (CIS) and  Copper-Indium-Gallium-Diselenide (CIGS) systems. 

Third generation of PV cells are those under development and demonstration which include PV cells for Concentrated Solar applications, including multi-junction cells and Organic and other Dye-Sensitized cells.

 

As can be expected, there is an even spread in assignees for solar photovoltaic patents across all the three above mentioned generation technologies. However, apart from a handful of electronic firms in South Korea, most of assignees came mostly from the developed countries, which notably included public universities and government departments in the US. Most assignees for thin-film technologies (second-generation) are firms in the US. Among third generation photovoltaic systems, assignees for multi-junction cells, touted for concentrated photovoltaics are from the US and Germany. Assignees to Dye-sensitized cell systems were again mostly from South Korea, Japan, Taiwanese and included a few Chinese firms.

Coming to Wind-power related and combined cycle power related patent assignment  is highly skewed. Wind related patent assignees were large power engineering companies based in the US, Denmark, Germany, Japan and Spain. IGCC technology patent assignees mostly are private firms from the US, France, Japan, Germany and Italy.

I will talk more about what issues have been noted by researchers earlier in future posts.

Gold, US Dollar and their Price relation

Some Cardinal Principles to begin with:
1. Price of any thing depends on its scarcity, more than its inherent value (Think of Diamond-Water Paradox).
2. Gold, Oil and other precious metals / commodities in the Global market are traded predominantly (sometimes entirely) in US Dollars.

So when Dollar gets weaker (vis-a-vis other currency such as the Indian Rupee). Gold becomes more affordable for people in India in terms of buying power of the Rupee. People rush to buy Gold and this raises  its Price in terms of the currency of Sale i.e. the Dollar. So the Dollar price of Gold increases when the Dollar is actually falling in terms of other currencies.

Now apply this explanation for India, where at the moment, Gold prices are falling as the Rupee is also growing weaker in relation to the Dollar. The explanation above seems to explain the Gold Price Phenomenon Perfectly.

However, Dr Brian Lucey, at Trinity College Dublin &  Mr. Fergal O’Connor take exception to the Causal explanation above and rightly (in my opinion) point out that it is purely a Correlation effect that Gold and Dollar move in opposite directions. The right way of thinking about this is to treat Gold as another currency which is used by the US' trading partner nations. When the Dollar's trade weighted value falls, Gold improves in value.

I redirect you to the original article. Gold - Dollar Negative relation

Caste as social capital | Business Line

Caste as social capital | Business Line

Legalese

Amicus curiae

An amicus curiae (literally "friend of the court") is someone who is not a party to a case who offers information that bears on the case but that has not been solicited by any of the parties to assist a court. This may take the form of legal opinion, testimony or learned treatise (the amicus brief) and is a way to introduce concerns ensuring that the possibly broad legal effects of a court decision will not depend solely on the parties directly involved in the case.

Indian Environmental Law- A Landscape

Indian Environmental Law is comprised of Legislative (Acts), Rules issued by Administrators, Regulators, Court & Tribunal Decisions. An outline chart of Legislative Acts, and Rules issued by the MOEF (Ministry of Environment & Forests) is given below.  

Readers must note that there are countless “Notifications” issued by Central, State and Union territory governments which constitute the primary working level details and guidelines for conducting business that has anything to do with the environment in India. Since it is impossible to list them all, I suggest the viewers to visit www.envfor.nic.in for more information.

The listing must be read as follows:

A- Amended followed by Year of Amendment

R-Repealed followed by Year of Repealing

In the present context of Indian Environmental Law

P&CP = Prevention & Control of Pollution (e.g. Air (P&CP) Act = Air (Prevention & Control of Pollution)

P = Protection (e.g. Environment (P) Act = Environment (Protection) Act)

About the Global Environmental Facility

On Conspicuous Consumption & Poverty

Warwick university's Omer Moav explores the link between Conspicuous consumption and Poverty

http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/research/consumption