US Failing to Create Good Investment Enviro for Green Tech
In a HSBC report out today, as The Hill reports, the U.S. is determined to be a ‘significant outlier,’ failing to create a ‘positive’ environment for green energy investment in the upcoming year.
In other countries around the globe, however, 2011 will mark a significant step forward in creating the necessary environment. In Europe, reality has set in. The report notes,
Doubts about science have been replaced by the realities of extreme events and rising commodity prices…
Meanwhile, 40% of Americans believe the changing climate is part of ‘planetary trends,’ and federal government support for growing the industry has been, at best, negligible.
Evidence of this lies in the recent decision of Evergreen, a solar panel company in Massachusetts, to relocate. The company, which had already announced plans to move some of its operations to China, now plans to relocate completely. The reason:
Evergreen has been struggling in face of weak prices and competition from cheaper operations in China, where the government has offered solar companies generous subsidies to locate there.
A quite unfortunate turn of events. As one editorial states,
…there is a unique opportunity in the burgeoning clean energy industry. Whichever state — or nation — becomes the center of the industry will reap potentially hundreds of thousands of jobs and billions of dollars of economic return. In solar energy, China has jumped out in front not just because costs are lower, but also by offering a wide variety of subsidies.
Unfortunately for the U.S. economy, HSBC predicts that in 2011 the U.S. climate strategy will ‘head in a negative direction.’
