Clean technology covers anything from renewable energy in all its forms as well as information technology, green transportation and any appliances that are now more energy efficient.
It has best been described by Wikipedia as “a means to create electricity and fuels with a smaller environmental footprint”.
Compounded with all this is the obvious need to make green buildings both more energy efficient and environmentally benign.
One of the newest concepts being developed abroad particularly in the USA is the concept of ‘environmental finance’ by which new clean tech projects that have that extra added bonus to contribute can obtain financing through the generation of carbon credits.
Even the by now long established CDM – Clean Development Mechanism and its related projects is also known as a carbon project.
There will soon come a time when clean technologies will not only compete with conventional counterparts but also become superior to them. Even were one to forget for a moment the significant additional benefits that they do provide.
Investments in clean technology have been around for the best part of this decade. Although rising oil prices and climate change policies have encouraged such investment one hopes that the momentum will be sustained regardless of the price of oil on international markets.
Ironically and not coincidentally in the USA the clean tech industry is largely based in Silicon Valley, the same Californian spot that fuelled the IT revolution.
While many thought that the credit crunch would see clean tech grinding to a halt, despite growing economic uncertainty across the last year, the three clean energy sectors – solar photovoltaics, wind power and biofuels kept up a blistering growth rate increasing by some 53 per cent between 07 and 08 as recently confirmed by The Clean Energy Trends 2009 Report released by Clean Edge.
By 2018, Clean Edge forecasts that these three sectors will have revenues of $325bn.
According to the UNEP Europe leads the world in renewable energy investment because of ‘supportive policies’ and a willing investor base.
The US still has a long way to go, in the sense that clean energy sources together now supply just 2.4 per cent of national electricity demand, excluding hydroelectric power, according to the US Energy Department while coal-burning power plants still supply about half the country’s power.
Many people who are often eager and very willing to rubbish the BRIC countries hardly realise that three countries – India, China and Brazil, saw total investment of $26bn for renewable sources last year – a figure which stands at 14 times the level in 2004.
But particularly thanks to the new thinking of the Obama administration, in the US investors are gearing up for a major shift in political attitude towards clean energy.
Even before Obama made it to the White House it was common knowledge that the new president would make renewable energy and energy efficiency a political priority.
Governments worldwide must realise that the transition to a low carbon society is not a trendy fashion but both a global imperative and an inevitability. One hopes that with the imminent global agreement due to be wrapped up in Copenhagen this December governments will feel empowered to reach a deep and meaningful new agreement.
If clean tech companies manage to see through the year 2009 successfully then a long term outlook can be safely predicted.
The number of clean-tech jobs is targeted to grow to around 2.6m in 2018.
Although the uncertainty over gas supplies from Russia might have created energy security headaches in Europe, it indirectly gave an impetus for European initiatives in the renewables field by making many a government realise that alternative energy can be and is strategic.
My calculated guess is that in the long term clean tech will grow globally into an industry rivaling or exceeding IT in historical importance.
Even more so since technological advances seem likely to accelerate that process.
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Leo Brincat is the Main Opposition Spokesperson for the Environment, Sustainable Development & Climate Change