China supplants US as global leader in clean energy investment, says report
Pew report finds sector's 'centre of gravity' has shifted east amid big drop in American spending
China overtook the United States last year as the global leader in clean energy investment while US spending on renewables fell nearly 40 per cent, according to a report to be released yesterday by the Pew Charitable Trusts.
"The centre of gravity in the clean energy world has shifted from the United States and Europe to China," it concluded.
China's leaders are intensely focused on clean energy. They have aggressive targets for renewable energy and helped bankroll the rapid growth of China's solar and wind industries. That resulted in China drawing US$65 billion in clean energy investment last year, according to the report, a whopping 30 per cent of all renewable investment in the world's top 20 economies.
China was installing solar, as the western European market for its solar products was drying up, said Ethan Zindler, head of policy analysis at Bloomberg New Energy Finance.
China is also a major producer of wind turbines and wants to tap its wind resources in Inner Mongolia and elsewhere. China needs energy to fuel its growth and is paying a price for its reliance on coal.
"There is an interest on the part of policy leaders there to address the terrible quality of the air," Zindler said.
The US led in global clean energy investment until 2009. It then traded the top spot with China before reclaiming it during the surge in investment that came along with the stimulus legislation and a record boom in US wind energy construction. US investment in wind skyrocketed as developers scrambled to finance projects before a tax break was to expire at the end of last year.