COP30: why industrial property needs to be at the center of the Brazilian agenda

Limiting global warming to 1.5°C requires the simultaneous alignment of economic, environmental, and social goals in the critical window between 2030 and 2050. The difficulty is not only technical or regulatory; it is, above all, financial. An annual requirement of around US$4 trillion is estimated by 2030, against observed counterflows of US$850–940 billion in 2021, adding up public and private capital—a gap that slows down the adoption of solutions. In this context, technology and intellectual property (IP) mechanisms are complementary levers for getting projects off the ground and bringing innovation to scale.

The production of new technologies—when analyzed systematically—offers early signs of the direction of sustainable innovation. Technology watch databases and studies make it possible to identify frontiers, gaps, and market trajectories, supporting R&D and public policy decisions, as well as guiding investors and governments. In terms of instruments, the WIPO GREEN platform connects providers and seekers of environmental technologies and offers taxonomies and search tools that accelerate the dissemination and transfer of solutions.

COP30, in 2025, positions Brazil as a climate leader. But more than a stage for environmental diplomacy, Belém represents an industrial window—an opportunity to align ecological transition, innovation policy, and industrial property (IP) instruments in a single development project. The new green economy will not be built solely on multilateral commitments, but on institutions capable of transforming ambition into productive structure. Brazil's challenge is precisely this: to create a green industrial policy that combines decarbonization, the Amazonian bioeconomy, and social inclusion, articulating science, market, and territory.

In this context, industrial property is not a regulatory formality; it is the thread that weaves together the cycle of sustainable innovation. It connects public and private investment in R&D, protection of intangible assets, technological diffusion, and commercialization of results. Each link in this cycle feeds the other: investment stimulates research, which generates knowledge, which becomes protected property, which translates into economic value and reinvests in new innovations.

By structuring this virtuous cycle, IP becomes a strategic infrastructure for the green transition. It reduces uncertainty for investors, guides the dissemination of technological and knowledge- and enables public-private partnerships for transfer and co-development. With it, Brazil can transform its comparative advantage—biodiversity, clean energy matrix, robust scientific base—into a competitive advantage.

COP30 is, therefore, a test of consistency: if the country wants to lead the climate debate, it needs to prove that its innovation policy is capable of delivering scalable, measurable, and fair solutions. This implies recognizing that IP, the environment, and social inclusion are not parallel agendas, but rather facets of the same development strategy—the tripod that will support Brazil's new green pact.

From announcement to result: IP as green industrial policy

The international climate debate provides a normative framework that illuminates the role of IP in this new paradigm. Thus, the Earth's atmosphere must be comprised as a global common good, whose use and restoration involve multiple levels of governance—individual, community, corporate, and state. This diffuse nature implies that the costs and benefits of climate action (or inaction) are intrinsically distributed, and therefore international cooperation is a condition of systemic rationality.

The experience of previous environmental regimes—such as the elimination of ozone-depleting substances or the fight against acid rain—confirms that cooperation is only lasting when the rules are perceived as fair and equitable. [3] This is also the central lesson reiterated by the IPCC: historical contributions to the accumulation of greenhouse gases and mitigation and adaptation capacities vary profoundly between countries. It follows that addressing the climate crisis is, above all, a matter of global distributive justice.

In this context, the principle of Common but Differentiated Responsibilities (CBDR) — enshrined in Principle 7 of the Rio Declaration and Article 3 of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) — constitutes the normative core of the international climate regime. CBDR recognizes the dual dimension of the common duty of environmental protection and the differentiation of responsibilities according to the capacities and historical contributions of States.

More than a legal abstraction, CBDR has an operational function: to guide the distribution of obligations and means of implementation (financing, capacity building, and technology transfer). It translates, in normative language, the imperative that equity is a condition for effectiveness.

When transposing this logic to the field of technological innovation, it can be observed that industrial property is the instrument that operationalizes CBDR at the economic level. The recognition of different capacities justifies differentiated policies to stimulate green innovation—such as priority procedures for climate technologies, tax and financial incentives for micro and small businesses, and mechanisms to support the protection of traditional knowledge and genetic resources. [4] Equity, here, is not only moral; it is functional. Accelerating the examination of green patents, creating IP vouchers for startups, and disseminating accessible licensing instruments are strategies that convert the principle of differentiation into concrete sustainable development practices. The success of COP30 will not be measured by the eloquence of speeches or the number of declarations signed, but by the ability to convert climate commitments into concrete projects, applied technologies, and skilled jobs. The Belém Conference, if well guided, could represent a turning point: the ecological transition would cease to be a purely environmental agenda and consolidate itself as a productive development strategy, anchored in innovation, competitiveness, and social inclusion. [5]

In this process, industrial property (IP) plays a structuring role. More than a legal instrument for protecting assets, it constitutes the economic infrastructure of innovation. It is through IP that expectations are stabilized, uncertainty is reduced, and the flows of cooperation and investment necessary to sustain the technological effort of the transition become possible. IP essentially operates on three interconnected fronts: (i) reducing uncertainty for investors and entrepreneurs; (ii) organizing technological information; and (iii) enabling technology transfer.

First, the legal predictability conferred by IP rights—especially patents, industrial designs, and trade secrets—is a necessary condition for financing innovation. The protection of intangible assets signals to the market the seriousness of the venture and provides security for venture capital operations, joint ventures, and co-development contracts. In contexts of high regulatory volatility, this predictability is decisive for transforming knowledge into productive investment.

Second, the patent system, often reduced to its privatizing dimension, also constitutes a global public repository of knowledge. Each patent application is, in itself, a piece of technical disclosure, containing solutions, methods, and applications that feed the collective intelligence of innovation. Technological surveillance and IP radars allow states, companies, and universities to map frontiers, identify gaps, and avoid duplication of effort, optimizing the use of public and private resources.

Third, the effectiveness of innovation depends not only on its creation, but also on its dissemination and social absorption. IP provides the contractual framework for licensing, co-development, technology procurement, and innovative public procurement processes. It defines ownership, risks, and benefit sharing. Without legal clarity on these relationships, technological cooperation tends to stagnate in mistrust; with it, the orderly flow of knowledge and the generation of shared value become possible.

Technological cooperation is another vector for the realization of CBDR. Matchmaking platforms, open technology radars, and innovative public procurement are examples of mechanisms that bring together supply and demand for climate solutions, transforming the discourse of international solidarity into a network of effective exchanges of technology and knowledge.

Time, technology, and territory: the green patent ecosystem

Innovating in climate is a race against time. The climate emergency imposes not only new mitigation and adaptation commitments, but also the urgency of shortening the cycle between research, development, and technological application. In this context, industrial property plays a decisive role in creating mechanisms that reduce uncertainty and accelerate the transition to a low-carbon economy.

"Green technologies" are understood to be those that are environmentally sound: technologies that protect the environment, pollute less, use resources more efficiently, recycle, and treat waste in a superior manner to their substitutes. In this sense, green patents are inventions or utility models that mitigate or eliminate environmental impacts, with the potential to contribute directly to climate goals. International evidence shows a fivefold increase in climate mitigation-related inventions between 1995 and 2011, followed by a slowdown until 2015—heterogeneous across areas and countries, and sensitive to energy price cycles, industrial policy, and IP instruments. This reinforces the thesis that accelerated examination, transparency, and pro-diffusion mechanisms are decisive for time-to-impact.

In Brazil, the BRPTO's Priority Processing Program for Green Patents anticipates decisions for technologies in five fields: alternative energy, transportation, energy conservation, waste management, and sustainable agriculture. The program has accepted about 115 applications per year in recent cycles, and prioritized applications have obtained a decision in less than a year, depending on the modality.

However, accelerating the examination process alone does not guarantee technological adoption or diffusion. It is at this point that Brazil has been structuring a more systemic approach, combining protection with technological intelligence and market coordination.

The technological radars produced by the BRPTO are central instruments in this process: studies that map innovation trends, identify gaps, and prioritize fields with the greatest potential for environmental impact—such as waste treatment, reuse and recycling of materials, bio-inputs, and clean energy. By transforming patent data into strategic information, these radars avoid “reinventing the wheel” and guide both public policies and private investment and R&D decisions.

In addition, technological matchmaking actions, developed in partnership with ECLAC, the EUROCLIMA+ program, and WIPO (WIPO Green), strengthen the bridge between supply and demand for sustainable technologies. [6] The business rounds held between 2019 and 2025 connected dozens of companies, ICTs, and investors from Latin America and Europe, generating concrete matches in areas such as sustainable agriculture, green hydrogen, waste management, and renewable energy. The innovation here lies not only in the technology itself, but also in the governance model: the project teams follow up after the event, monitoring the progress of negotiations and converting meetings into effective technology transfer or co-development contracts.

This institutional architecture was reinforced with the creation, in 2023, of the BRPTO's Sustainability and Bioeconomy Commission (COSBIO), which seeks to integrate the environment, innovation, and social inclusion within the scope of industrial property. Among its areas of work, one highlight is the study on the implementation of the Treaty on Intellectual Property, Genetic Resources, and Associated Traditional Knowledge, approved by WIPO in 2024. The treaty requires the declaration of the origin of resources and traditional knowledge used in inventions, ensuring transparency, benefit sharing, and recognition of the role of local communities in biodiversity conservation—an important step forward in building a more equitable IP system aligned with environmental justice.

Brazil has also been expanding the use of IP as a tool for valuing traditional knowledge and territorial development. The registration of the Flona de Tefé collective trademark and the consolidation of geographical indications such as Mel de Aroeira de Minas Gerais demonstrate how trademarks and GIs can become instruments for generating income and cultural appreciation, while promoting sustainable production practices.

The convergence between green patents, technology watch, matchmaking, and socio-environmental inclusion instruments therefore forms a true ecosystem of sustainable innovation. It articulates protection, dissemination, and technology transfer with a focus on environmental, economic, and social impact. However, there is still a blind spot that needs to be addressed: the low presence of national companies as green patent applicants, despite the country's strong scientific output. Brazil's bottleneck is not only in generating knowledge, but in absorbing it and transforming it into economic assets.

Amazon: biodiversity, climate risk, and technological opportunities

The green transition is also anchored in territory, biodiversity, and traditional knowledge. While green patents and technology diffusion mechanisms accelerate industrial decarbonization, it is in the field of bioeconomy that Brazil can show the world that innovation and inclusion are not opposites, but parts of the same value system.

The Amazon is the epicenter of the relationship between biodiversity, climate, and innovation. Covering 4.2 million km²—equivalent to 48% of Brazil's territory—the Amazon Biome is home to the largest tropical forest on the planet, regulates the continental water cycle, and acts as a global carbon sink. Conceptually, it is important to distinguish between the Amazon Biome, the Legal Amazon, and the Pan-Amazon, which partially overlap but represent different ecological, political-administrative, and international cooperation dimensions.

The region faces converging pressures: advancing deforestation, habitat fragmentation, recurrent fires, and increasingly intense extreme weather events. Scientific studies point to the risk of forest "savannization"—that is, the replacement of humid ecosystems with more open and dry vegetation—as a possible irreversible ecological tipping point if the rate of forest loss exceeds 20–25% of the original cover.[7] This process would have profound impacts not only on biodiversity, but also on agriculture, energy, and water security across the continent.

Given this scenario, the literature converges around three essential pillars: (i) effective and monitored protected areas; (ii) sustainable bioeconomic chains that value forest products and local knowledge; and (iii) green technologies that increase productivity without expanding the frontier of degradation.[8]

In this context, innovation based on Amazonian biodiversity emerges as a vector for sustainable development. The Brazilian Patent and Trademark Office (INP) has been contributing to structuring this agenda through technological prospecting studies, such as the mapping of bio-inputs in the Amazon. The report identifies more than 50 typical bio-inputs with applications in the food, pharmaceutical, cosmetic, energy, and agricultural sectors—including biofuels, biofertilizers, and biological pest control technologies—highlighting the economic potential of socio-biodiversity and the gaps in intellectual property governance associated with it.

Transforming this biological and cultural wealth into shared value requires appropriate legal and economic instruments. The integration of patents, collective trademarks, geographical indications (GIs), and benefit-sharing licensing agreements is the way to align innovation, social justice, and environmental conservation. These mechanisms allow local communities—indigenous, riverine, extractive, and quilombola—to be co-protagonists in the value chain, preserving their knowledge and obtaining income in a sustainable manner.

The entry into force of the WIPO Treaty on Genetic Resources and Associated Traditional Knowledge, approved in 2024 after more than two decades of negotiations, ushers in a new phase of global biodiversity governance. The agreement introduces the obligation of transparency of origin in patent applications that use genetic resources or traditional knowledge, in addition to consolidating mechanisms for the fair and equitable sharing of benefits derived from their exploitation.

For the Amazon, the treaty is a tool for institutionalizing practices already observed in the local economy, where sustainable production chains depend directly on community governance, recognition of traditional knowledge, and appropriate intellectual property instruments. Collective trademarks, geographical indications, and licensing agreements with benefit-sharing clauses are no longer exceptions and now form part of the legal framework of a fair bioeconomy, where value and income are shared with those who preserve and innovate in the territory.

In Brazil, this movement finds institutional expression in the work of the Sustainability and Bioeconomy Commission (COSBIO/BRPTO), created in 2023 to integrate sustainability, IP, and social inclusion. [9] COSBIO has been conducting studies on the application of the new treaty and coordinating mentoring, training, and technology dissemination activities in the Amazon—with workshops on geographical indications, collective marks, and green patents, in partnership with SEBRAE, SUFRAMA, and the Federal Institute of Amazonas (IFAM).

Recent experiences reinforce the role of IP as infrastructure for productive inclusion. Initiatives such as the Flona de Tefé collective mark, developed in partnership with WIPO and the Development and Intellectual Property Commission (CDIP), demonstrate how IP can generate income, strengthen sustainable chains, and enhance local knowledge. Similarly, support for Amazonian geographical indications, such as Mel de Aroeira de Minas Gerais honey, expands access to markets and recognizes the link between product, territory, and way of life.

This set of instruments points to a new generation of biodiversity and innovation policies, in which intellectual property ceases to be a mechanism of appropriation and becomes a tool for governance and redistribution. For this to take hold, it will be necessary to align the national regulatory framework—including the Biodiversity Law (Law No. 13,123/2015)—with the provisions of the WIPO treaty, promoting simplified procedures, contractual models for community governance, and public monitoring of the benefits generated.

Ultimately, the consolidation of this model depends on interinstitutional coordination and public impact metrics. Integration between the BRPTO, the Ministry of the Environment, the MCTI, and the Ministry of Agrarian Development is crucial to transforming biodiversity into a bioeconomy without sacrificing equity and governance. It is this balance—between protection and sharing, innovation and territory—that can give Brazil a unique role at COP30: to prove that green transition and climate justice are, in practice, the same agenda.

How to measure environmental innovation?

Measuring environmental innovation is a technical and conceptual challenge, as it involves capturing not only the creation of knowledge, but also the direction of that knowledge—that is, its effective contribution to sustainability. In this context, patents have established themselves as one of the main indicators of innovative effort, allowing us to observe both the volume and the specialization and diffusion of environmentally oriented technologies.

Patent filings and grants reflect applied R&D activities and are one of the few internationally comparable instruments, especially when analyzed in conjunction with standardized technological classifications such as the International Patent Classification (IPC) and the Cooperative Patent Classification (CPC). In addition, textual analyses of abstracts, claims, and specifications allow us to capture emerging trends and interactions between technological sectors.

The World Intellectual Property Organization, through the WIPO GREEN platform, maintains the IPC Green Inventory, a thematic inventory that organizes technologies related to climate mitigation and adaptation—called Environmentally Sound Technologies (ESTs)—and links them directly to the technology lists of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). This inventory allows users to refine searches and identify specializations, offering specific subcategories within macro fields such as: (i) waste management (disposal, treatment, combustion, reuse, and pollution control); (ii) sustainable agriculture (reforestation, alternative irrigation, biological pesticides, soil improvement); and (iii) alternative energies and clean transportation, among others.

In Brazil, the Brazilian Patent and Trademark Office (BRPTO) has been playing a prominent role in consolidating this empirical basis. The Technology Radars published since 2022 offer detailed sectoral overviews of patenting in critical areas of the green transition, such as renewable energy, sustainable agriculture, biofuels, waste management, green hydrogen, and bio-inputs/biofertilizers.

These studies serve as technological intelligence tools, supporting public policies, investment decisions, and cooperation strategies between universities, companies, and governments. By translating patent data into sector indicators, the radars make it possible to identify priority areas for investment, knowledge gaps, potential licensing partners, and even opportunities for open innovation. In this sense, they are a fundamental link between industrial property governance and the formulation of evidence-based climate policies.

Conclusion: COP30 as a turning point

COP30 runs the risk of repeating the familiar script of previous conferences: accurate diagnoses, broad commitments, few tangible results. Brazil, the conference host, has the chance to change this pattern—and that starts with putting IP at the center of green industrial policy. This is because intellectual property is the connecting axis between investment, protection, dissemination, and the market. It is what provides security to private capital, transforms research into economic assets, guides the formulation of public policies, and enables the technology transfer that converts innovation into development.

Including IP in the climate agenda, therefore, is not a technicality—it is a state strategy.

The Belém Agenda summarizes this movement. It proposes a four-pronged implementation structure: accelerate where it hurts, disseminate what exists, value the territory, and measure impact (observatories and public indicators). It is about transforming guidelines into institutional routines, with goals, metrics, and deadlines that fit within the calendar of a term of office.

For this architecture to work, it is essential to standardize indicators—avoided emissions, licensed patents, local income generated, participation of female inventors and national companies—and institutionalize permanent mechanisms: public SLAs in the examination of green patents, IP vouchers, innovative public procurement, and interministerial governance between the economy, environment, science, and industry. More than protecting inventions, it is about making technology circulate: quickly, with quality, and in a network. Each license signed, each radar published, each GI registered, is a bridge between science and society. A climate-focused IP policy not only decarbonizes production—it redistributes opportunities, strengthens communities, and creates new knowledge-based economic frontiers.