China leads the world in clean energy investment

Saturday, September 04, 2010 by: David Gutierrez, staff writer
Tags: China, clean energy, health news

(NaturalNews) China has surpassed the United States to become the world's leader in so-called "clean energy" investments, according to a report by The Pew Charitable Trusts.

The report defines wind power, solar power and biofuels as clean energy sources and analyzes the investment in these technologies by G-20 nations. The G-20 accounts for 90 percent of all investments in such technologies worldwide.

With $34.6 billion in investments in 2009, China surpassed the United States by more than $15 billion, accounting for 30.5 percent of G-20 investment in renewable power. A full 71.1 percent of this investment went to wind power. Although only 8 percent of China's renewable energy spending went into solar power, it has already become the world's largest producer of solar panels.

Coming in a distant second, the United States invested $18.6 billion in renewable energy in 2009, accounting for 16.4 percent of the G-20 total. Along with Brazil, it was one of only two G-20 countries still investing significantly in biofuels, which the report notes have declined in popularity since the food shortages of 2006-07. A full 43.1 percent of U.S. renewable energy investments went to wind power.

Although the United States still leads the world in research and development of renewable energy technology, it has fallen behind in manufacturing.

The United Kingdom, the European Union and Spain came in third and fourth, investing $11.2 billion and $10.8 billion. While both of these nations invested primarily in wind, fifth-place Spain ($10.4 billion investment) focused its spending primarily on solar, with wind coming in second.

The only Latin American country on the list, Brazil came in sixth. Germany ranked seventh, with splitting its $4.3 billion investment primarily between solar (44.3 percent) and wind power (31.2 percent). Canada came in eighth and Italy came in ninth, with both nations focusing on wind power.

In tenth place, India spent $2.3 billion on renewable technologies, accounting for 2 percent of G-20 spending.

Sources for this story include: http://www.upi.com/News_Photos/gallery/Top-1....