A new report by the Pew Environment Group provides some very sobering snapshots of the state of clean tech investment worldwide and demonstrates exactly why the Chinese are beating the U.S. out in the race to lasting clean technologies. If one only examined private investment (venture capital and such), the United States is the global leader in clean tech investment, outpacing the next largest investor, Brazil, by billions. The graph below tells the story, in GW of energy capacity financed:
But if you look at TOTAL investments, including public markets, China beats us out hands down. Expect Thomas Friedman to be talking about this in one of his upcoming columns. The difference is that China invests untold billions of public money in clean tech, whereas we still extend billions in subsidies and giveaways to the Old Energy barrons, coal and oil. So in the end, China invested almost double what the US did last year alone.
Obama has started to step up US public sector investments through the stimulus package, but the stimulus is a one-time event. These sorts of public sector investments need to become a matter of policy if we are going to want to lead in the same way we have with other technologies.
via Dollars and Yuan: Snapshot of Global Green Energy Investment.
