Cleantech Group Report: Investment Will Continue Regardless of Copenhagen Outcome
Legislative wrangling over cap and trade and a grim outlook for the Copenhagen climate talks got you down? Investors need not worry, says the Cleantech Group in a new report (only for subscribers, unfortunately).
“The most meaningful climate initiatives of late driving cleantech innovation have been driven at the level of the G20, the U.S.-led Major Economies Forum and the G2 (China and America). The center of gravity is not the bureaucratic UN Framework Convention on Climate Change,” said Cleantech Group executive editor Dallas Kachan.
Translation: the United Nations isn’t funding cleantech and green energy projects, national government stimulus plans are. And private investors, who are anticipating a carbon reduction framework of some sort, will continue to fund projects regardless of the climate change agreement’s final form.
Many businesses, GreenTech’s Martin LaMonica notes, are pushing for the legislation so they can begin investing in innovative technology and infrastructure. Industry leaders just want to understand the new regulatory landscape so they can adjust accordingly.
The report, however, doesn’t hold out much hope for Copenhagen. Congress’ failure to make meaningful progress and China’s brinkmanship will hobble the deal.
The industry shouldn’t expect Copenhagen to drive demand for cleantech, but should instead see one milestone on the way to an accord.
This analysis roughly squares with what Al Gore has been shopping this week as he hawks his book. He told The New Yorker’s Elizabeth Kolbert:
I think that first of all, the analogy, though perhaps used too often, between the Copenhagen negotiation and the Montreal Protocol of 1987 [on substances that deplete the ozone] is still the best analogy available. That treaty was bitterly criticized as being too weak at the time, but it did shift expectations and, only three years later, some of the business opponents of the Montreal Protocol were in London arguing to greatly toughen that agreement. Two years after that—in Copenhagen, ironically—it was toughened much further, and now it is a historic success in the making.
