| Climate change and the series of severe consequences it has resulted have aroused top attention of governments, international organizations, environmental protection groups and the general mass. Climate change has become a global problem. It is thought that human activities have substantially increased the atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases and that these increases enhance the natural greenhouse effect which causes a warmer globe. Mitigation and adaptation are the two ways to tackle with a warmer globe. United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (referred to as UNFCCC hereinafter) and its Kyoto Protocol (referred to as KP hereinafter) are the most prominent worldwide multilateral legal instruments to deal with the problem. Under the UNFCCC, industrialized countries are urged to take all practicable steps to promote, facilitate and finance the transfer of, or access to, climate-related technologies and know-how to developing countries to enable them to implement the provisions of the Convention. Regardless of the fact that 17 years has past since the entry into force of the UNFCCC and the 14 years the KP has grown its life, no breakthrough of transfer of climate-related technologies has been seen. We may find whys from UNFCCC and KP themselves while it is likely to have something to do with the TRIPs Agreement, another global multilateral agreement. To find out the causes of the inadequate transfer of climate-related technologies and then put forward some perfection advices are critical to the promotion of the technology transfer and to combat global climate change. The thesis is divided into four parts to clarify the theme.Part I is arranged by the following sequence. The concepts of CLIMATE and CLIMATE CHANGE are defined first, and then it moves to the discussion of the reasons of climate change and its scientific uncertainty. Thirdly, it portrays the legal framework to combat the global climate change. Lastly, several other crucial concepts of the thesis are given their definition by comparison with relevant concepts. They are CLIMATE-RELATED TECHNOLOGY and the TRANSFER OF CLIMATE-RELATED TECHNOLOGIES.Part II combs out the framework of the climate-related technology transfer mandates of the UNFCCC and its KP at first. Then it probes into the progress of the climate-related technology transfer negotiations and points out that the universal lack of political will, inoperation of the mandates themselves and the shortage of a strong compliance mechanism for the UNFCCC are the whys of the inadequate transfer of climate-related technologies. It analyses the relationship between the KP flexible mechanisms and the transfer of climate-related technologies in the end.Part III discusses the relation between the TRIPs Agreement and the transfer of climate-related technologies, with a special focus on the PUSH and PULL mechanisms of the TRIPs Agreement and other provisions like compulsory license, control of anti-competitive practices in contractual licenses and the disclosure of patent information that may have influences on climate-related technology transfer. The analysis shows that no affirmatory evidences are found to support that enhanced intellectual property rights protection is in favour of more transfer of climate-related technologies, the developing countries are not able to access to more climate-related technologies by utilizing the flexible mechanisms of the TRIPs Agreement either.Based on the previous analysis, Part IV brings forward several suggestions including principles the legal mechanism of climate-related technology transfer should follow, choice of paradigms, perfection of national communication mechanism, financial mechanism for climate-related technology transfer and KP flexible mechanisms, establishment of a proper intellectual property protection system and compulsory license system for climate-related technologies and perfection of the provision of paragraph 2 of Article 66 of the TRIPs Agreement.
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