They may appear to be two unconnected events. Recently, Eric Lander, director of Broad Institute, MIT, visited India and began preliminary discussions on involving Indian scientists in the Human Genome Project. Then there was the two-week jamboree in Bali, which ended with the world’s countries wrangling to arrive at a formula to ‘save the earth’ from climate change.

While one deals with the challenge of disease, the other, of saving humanity from rising seas, melting ice-caps and extreme weather. The reason to talk about the two together is that one process could learn from the other. In 2007, following a series of scientific reports, climate change came to be recognised as not just an environmental challenge but a reality of economic development. In the coming year, a major obstacle facing all countries — rich or poor — is finding technologies that reduce emissions to safe levels, whether in power, transport or industrial processes.

Some expensive options already exist in the developed world. The challenge that looms ahead is how they get transferred to countries that are the most vulnerable or are growing at the fastest rates and cannot afford them. At Bali, the rich nations reluctantly agreed on a programme to scale up the level of investment for technology transfer to developing countries. The Bali roadmap says the exact mechanism will have to be evolved in the next two years. Going by the debates, it seems to be moving towards financial flows from the haves to the have-nots.

The approach adopted by the HGP (Human Genome Project) could be useful in showing how key technologies could be evolved for the public good. If the developed countries (largely responsible for the bulk of emissions) could take leadership and collaborate with the scientists of developing countries — both in providing institutional as well as financial support — technology transfer as a concept would be change agent.

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