China invested nearly twice as much money—$34.6 billion—in clean energy projects in 2009 as the United States. The ecological impact of China’s economic boom could be a factor, but so could the profits and jobs expected to flourish in this nascent industry.
In relative terms, smaller countries also outperformed the U.S.
The Pew report said those countries with strong, national policies aimed at reducing global warming and encouraging the use of renewable energy—including the UK, Germany and Spain—had succeeded in establishing stronger competitive positions in the clean energy economy.
“Nations seeking to compete effectively for clean energy jobs and manufacturing would do well to evaluate the array of policy mechanisms that can be employed to stimulate clean energy investment,” the report stated. “This is especially true for policymakers in the United States, which is at risk of falling further behind its G20 competitors in the coming years absent adoption of a strong national policy framework to spur more robust clean energy investment.”