Green China

'Many areas' for Sino-US green cooperation

By Tan Yingzi (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-11-03 10:52

Focus should be on solutions, not finding fault with China: Analysts

WASHINGTON - China and the United States should team up in clean-energy development to boost energy conservation and environmental protection, analysts have said.

Bill Tyndall, senior vice-president of federal government and regulatory affairs at energy company Duke Energy, said the two countries can work together in many areas, including coal decarbonization, renewable energy and smart grid fields.

"There is no reason not to cooperate with China because of some competition," he said. Dejan Ostojic, energy expert of the East Asia and Pacific region at the World Bank, is also positive about Sino-US cooperation in green energy.

There were a number of barriers to foreign investment in China's clean-energy sector in the past, such as the 70 percent local content requirement for wind turbine products, Ostojic said.

But last year, China made a "breakthrough" to lift the restriction and created a better environment for foreign companies, he said.

"We can see the positive trend (in international cooperation in clean energy)," he told China Daily.

"There are maybe some barriers but they are not insurmountable ... it is just a matter of time, to see more foreign investors in China in this area and the openness increasing further."

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Michael Eckhart, president of the American Council on Renewable Energy, a non-profit organization of more than 600 member companies and institutions promoting renewable energy, said the US should not blame China for "stealing" American green jobs but look at its own problems in the clean-energy sector instead.

Both countries in 2000 had two wind-turbine companies and five solar photovoltaic manufacturers.

But 10 years later, the US still holds the same number of players while China now has 83 wind turbine companies and 528 solar photovoltaic manufacturers, Eckhart said. He was addressing trade issues in US-China clean-energy cooperation at the Brookings Institute recently.

A number of US media and politicians have accused China of unfair competition in clean energy through government subsidies. They claim that as a result of those subsidies, cheaper wind turbines and solar panels made in China have caused the loss of thousands of American jobs in the sector.

But the US federal and state governments have also been subsidizing the industry with similar policies, Eckhart said. The results have not been very encouraging and the anger generated by such measures has been directed at China, he said.

"We need to step up urgently in the equivalent industries and take on the world market and give credit to China for what has been done, keep a good relationship with it and take advantage of what it has done."

Eckhart suggested that US clean-energy companies learn from their European counterparts in exploring the global market, such as sending more senior executives overseas to understand the local markets.