Support for compulsory licensing as a means of ensuring the deployment of environmentally sound technologies (ESTs) through the developing world has increasingly gathered strength from various quarters. Supporters of compulsory licensing as a means of EST diffusion through the developing world see the Doha Declaration on the compulsory licensing of pharmaceuticals as an appropriate precedent for any future licensing of ESTs. These supporters of compulsory licensing fail to acknowledge that the developing world is deeply divided into technologically proficient countries and the least developed countries, with gradations in between. Based on this division, Neel contends that compulsory licensing is not the appropriate solution because:
i. The market for ESTs is completely different from the market for pharmaceuticals. Therefore compulsory licensing is inappropriate in technologically proficient developing countries.
ii. By contrast, owing to problems in operational capability, compulsory licensing is simply inadequate in the least developed countries.
As an alternative, Neel suggests a solution based on two kinds of subsidy funds. One to fund technology transfers based on a shifting, graduated subsidy adjusted to the needs of the receiving country. The second is a long-term fund aimed at increasing infrastructural capacity in the least developed countries. Neel suggests that this alternative solution adheres more closely to the international regime governing climate change today and respects the sovereign rights of countries under international law.

