China accounts for the majority of low-carbon projects that secured total funding of $43 billion over the last six months, Reuters has reported, citing a report by the Mission Possible Partnership, a non-governmental energy transition advocacy, supported by the World Economic Forum and the Bezos Earth Fund.
There were a total of 19 industrial projects that received funding for low-carbon energy in the period reviewed, and 13 of them were in China, the report said. The total is a considerable increase on a year earlier, when just eight projects received funding.
“In an increasingly fragmented and unstable environment, fossil-fuel dependence has shown time and again to mean exposure to price shocks, supply disruption, and economic crises,” the chief executive of the Mission Possible Partnership said. The industries included in the report range from chemicals to metals, cement, and air transport.
China has been the undisputed leader in low-carbon energy investments for years now, although the European Union has put a lot of effort into challenging this position, with the help of China-made equipment.
In total, there are 969 low-carbon energy industrial projects globally, the Mission Possible Partnership report noted. Of these, 170 are in China, another 318 are in the countries from the so-called sunbelt, which includes India and Brazil, and 211 are in Europe. The United States is far behind the rest, with 72 low-carbon energy projects across the industries covered.
“The United States has a significant pipeline, but is losing relative momentum,” the transition NGO said, noting the number of projects that received funding over the last 12 months had fallen from 92 to 72. This is unsurprising given the Trump administration’s firmly pro-oil and pro-gas energy policy that also recently saw efforts to boost coal power generation in response to rising demand, especially from the tech sector.
By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com
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