China seen as global leader in clean energy efforts:study
China has become a leader in clean energy efforts, a study showed Tuesday, outstripping the US and Japan and leaving Australia lagging far behind.The Vivid Economics report, commissioned by Australia's Climate Institute think tank, shows that China is second only to Britain in the value of its incentives to cut pollution from electricity generation.
Britain's efforts were estimated at $29.30 per ton of carbon to China's $14.20, with the US clocking $5.10, Japan $3.10, Australia $1.70 and just $0.70 for South Korea.
The six countries account for just under half of all global emissions.
"The Chinese leadership has made a strategic decision - that they missed out on the last two industrial revolutions, and they don't want to miss out on the third one," said Erwin Jackson, director of the Climate Institute. "They are now commanding the largest market share of clean energy investment at a global level as a result."
China's investment in clean energy topped $35 billion in 2009, compared with $11 billion in Britain and $18 billion in the US, and Jackson said it was set to increase tenfold over the next decade.
The main driver of China's performance was its commitment to shutting down more than 100 small coal-fired power plants for cleaner coal stations by 2011, which the report said would reduce emissions by 15 percent.
It also offered subsidies worth billions of yuan for green energy projects, aiming to generate 15 percent of the nation's total energy from renewable sources by 2020.
China, the world's second- largest energy consumer after the US, last year pledged at the United Nations Climate Change Summit in New York to cut carbon dioxide emissions per unit of gross domestic product by 40 percent to 45 percent from 2005 through 2020.
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