Monday 19 October 2009


ASIA'S DIFFICULT PROMISE OF CLEAN ENERGY

Terry Lacey

Asia Sentinel, October 19, 2009

There is a growing need for Asian countries to get access to international finance and technology, especially in the wake of the global economic slowdown, to meet their goals in clean energy and efficiency.

Although China is likely to put more than US$20 billion into clean energy and energy efficiency this year, and the China, India and Asean clean energy markets together will easily exceed US$25 billion, Asian spending on clean energy slumped by an estimated 70 percent in the first quarter of 2009 as a result of the credit crisis and falling oil prices, which cut into the need for alternative fuels.

Even without international funding, the region's spending goals total more than 21 percent of the global market. Some 75 percent of the world's sustainable energy projects originate in Asia, creating pollution credits for European and Japanese industry to buy to meet Kyoto Protocol emissions credits.

Indonesia wants to commit more than US$3 billion per year to clean energy, with India's total rising to US$3.7 billion in 2008. The combined China and Asean clean energy market is headed towards more than US$30 billion a year by 2010. But it is difficult at this point to see what the Copenhagen summit in December will accomplish in terms of the need to make these new clean energy markets work bigger and better.

The odds are slim and getting slimmer. Some 1,500 delegates from 180 countries met in Bangkok from September 28 to October 9 in an attempt to hammer out details of the United Nations pact to be presented in Copenhagen. By all accounts, they failed. There was no commitment from the rich nations to commit to a formal text – as there hasn't been in three successive meetings in Bonn in April, June and August. A last session is to be held in Barcelona in the first week of November amid growing gloom.

(...) [artículo aquí]

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