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Controversy of the Policies of Sustainable Development and their relation with Intellectual Property

The sustainable development has become an extremely widespread theme in the modern society. Nowadays, there are huge incentives towards the development of technologies using renewable resources and which are less aggressive to the environment.

Among the sustainable development policies, possibly the global warming theme is the most widespread and the most prominent at the moment. However, the very own global warming theme has its contradictions. Several scientists and researchers assert that the global warming does not depend upon the man’s actions and concerns a cyclic process of the climate of our planet. These scientists, who are called the “skeptics of the global warming”, show details proving that, historically, our planet undergoes heat and cold cycles and that, at this time, we are simply going through a hot cycle of our climate.

Thus, how is it that the themes on global warming and sustainable development have become so widespread in the political and ideological ambit of the modern society? The skeptics affirm that there is a great economic interest in the subject matter. The widespread interest of the global warming involves the need of everlasting new investments in sustainable technologies, which, most times, are conceived in the developed countries and exported to the underdeveloped ones.

Upon raising the issue concerning new technologies, we are also referring to the Intellectual Property system, which has been widespread and adhered to by the great majority of countries. New technologies generate patents, which guarantees to the owner of the patent entitled to exclude others to exploit the object of the patent over a time period provided in law.

However, upon developing a new technology, it is not so simple to persuade the consumer possessing a product to exchange it for another, simply because that new product is slightly improved. In this regard, some companies or institutions may take advantage of certain ideologies for influencing the population to purchase new technologies. In the case of ideologies related to the sustainable development and the global warming, the population is many times led to believe that their old products may harm the planet, and that new products would be the solution for such problems.

It is a fact that Intellectual Property protection is extremely important for the development of society. If there was not a period of monopoly of a technology developed and patented, there would be no incentive to research and development and probably our society would be far behind technologically compared to today. However, as any other tool of the capitalism, the Intellectual Property and its laws may be manipulated to the benefit and interest of a few, contrary to its main target, which is favoring society as a whole. Therefore, it is important that the society develop a critical sense for ever gathering knowledge from several reliable sources, in order that, not only the Intellectual Property, but every law and any other form of regulation of the society, not be used to manipulate its form of acting, thinking and developing.

Carmen Sánchez-Puelles