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Easy access to green tech vital to reducing emissions

Uganda gets plenty of sun, making it a great spot for solar energy. There's only one problem: In one of the world's most impoverished nations, not many people can afford to install an imported solar panel on the roof.

Nations are struggling at a UN climate change conference to find better ways to get cheap, easy-to-use green technology into the hands of the developing world -- while balancing the demands of companies for profits.

Poorer countries accuse the rich of pressuring them to control emissions of greenhouse gases blamed for global warming, while refusing to provide them with technology needed to do so without hurting their economies.

Often, the wealthy nations use the developing world to unload outdated, polluting machinery, critics say. When developing nations do get projects, the technology is often prohibitively expensive, inappropriate to the country's needs, or controlled by the foreign providers.

"We know the challenges are there, but we cannot respond to the challenges because we don't have the capacity," said Ugandan Environment Minister Maria Mutagamba, adding that the country was "on the receiving end of technology that we cannot understand."

Wealthy countries, meanwhile, argue companies need protection for intellectual property rights, assurances they will have the opportunity to profit from their investments and better regulation and laws in host nations.

Industrialized countries deny they are unfairly withholding vital know-how from poorer nations.

"Let there be no doubt -- America is engaged in the transfer and receipt of technologies on a massive scale," said Jim Connaughton, chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality.

Poorer countries say their need for energy will only increase with economic growth, and reliance today on outdated technology will lock them into high-emissions patterns for decades to come.

"What is needed in the short to medium-term is for developed countries to speed up the process of transferring climate-sound technologies to developing countries," Ghanian Environment Minister Maxwell Kofi Jumah said. "Time is running out and more action is needed."
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