The report, named ‘Global Climate Change Policy Tracker: An Investor's Assessment’, analysed low carbon policies in 109 countries and ranked them based on the risks they presented to clean tech investors.
According to this report, Germany, China and Japan present some of the lowest risks for green investors and clean tech firms looking to expand their operations, while the UK and US currently have a higher risk policy and clean tech investment environment. The report comes as US energy secretary Steven Chu warned yesterday that his country may miss out on a multi-billion dollar market in clean energy technologies unless it acts quickly to encourage investment.
Clean tech countries
Among the countries in the Major Economies Forum, Australia, Brazil, China, France, Germany and Japan were hold to present the lowest investment risks. Germany and China also ranked highly in terms of the amount of clean tech investment projects between 2000 and 2008, with respectively $36.7 billion and $41.2 billion in capital investment.
The UK and US occupied the second tier of countries, ranked by investment risks, alongside Canada, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Russia, South Africa and South Korea. However, both the UK and US boasted relatively high levels of green capital investment between 2000 and 2008 with $17 billion and $52.1 billion invested respectively. Italy, instead, has been designated as the major economy with the highest level of risk for clean tech investors.
Clean tech and renewable need greater investment
The report found that governments need to strengthen renewable energies and clean tech incentives immediately if they wish to attract sufficient capital investment to green industries.
The report called for new clean tech policies to tackle the high upfront costs associated with improving energy efficiency and recommended reforms to carbon emission cap-and-trade schemes to ensure greater stability in carbon prices. It also recommended feed-in tariffs as the most effective means of guaranteeing long term returns for clean tech investors and giving them the confidence to fund capital intensive clean tech projects.
