Isra-Mart srl : China's low-carbon leadership headlines fail to capture the reality

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There is no doubt that China is emerging as a major economic force, but some claims about technological leadership are premature.
It is now common to hear claims that China has "caught up" with the world's leading economies. Last month, the Pew Environment Group put China at the top of its clean energy investment rankings for 2010. Investment in China reached $54bn, with Germany in second place ($41bn) and the US in third ($34bn). In a similar vein, the Royal Society recently published data showing that China is set to overtake the US in academic publications by 2013 if current trends continue.

But what lies behind these headlines? Do these indicators show that China is really taking the lead so quickly in the clean technology race – or are such claims premature? Our recent research with Tsinghua University on low-carbon innovation in China has spent the past year examining this question. It has found a more mixed picture than the headlines suggest.

China's rapid rise is not in doubt. GDP has been increasing at around 10% a year for more than two decades. Alongside this, the environmental side effects of growth have caused significant concern. This has led to a series of targets for energy efficiency and the development of non-fossil energy sources. The energy intensity target for the 11th five-year plan aimed for a 20% reduction between 2006 and 2010. The target was just about met, but not without panic by provincial officials who implemented power cuts in some areas.

Targets for individual low-carbon technologies have repeatedly been revised upwards as development outstripped expectations. Wind power growth has caught particular attention - with capacity rising from 13 gigawatts (GW) in 2008 to 42GW in 2010 (equivalent to half the power plant capacity in the UK). China is the world's largest user of solar hot water systems, and its subsidies for alternative fuel vehicles are substantial. There are ambitious plans to increase nuclear power capacity from the current 10GW to 80GW by 2020. In the light of the Fukushima accident, this now seems unrealistic – and plans are on hold pending a review.

Discussions of technology deployment can only take us so far in understanding China's low-carbon position. With respect to technology development and manufacturing, the picture is more complex. In some technologies such as wind power, the headlines appear to be broadly right. Homegrown wind turbine manufacturers such as Goldwind and Sinovel are now amongst the world's top five, though questions remain about their ability to move into advanced offshore wind technologies. But wind power policy in China also has some weaknesses. According to the Worldwatch Institute, around one-third of China's wind power projects have trouble connecting to the grid. Developers have rushed to build new capacity, but with insufficient consideration of how their power would be distributed.

In other areas, our research found significant gaps. In electric vehicles, Chinese companies complain that they do not have independent capabilities in key technologies and systems. In coal-fired power, domestic manufacturers are rapidly increasing efficiency to international levels. Some independent innovation has been achieved, for example in technologies which produce synthetic gas from coal. But many technologies used in the most advanced plants are still licensed from firms in OECD countries. China's most efficient coal-fired power plant at Waigaoqiao was built using technology owned by two European firms.

China is also experimenting with carbon capture and storage technologies. These technologies are often seen as essential if carbon emissions from China are to be reduced over the long term. The recent Clean Energy Ministerial called for stronger international action to develop these technologies. However, the possibility that China might take the lead here seems unrealistic. In this power-hungry country, most utilities are put off by the 25% loss in efficiency required to power the carbon capture equipment.

China is emerging as a major economic force no doubt, but some claims about technological leadership are premature. They serve as useful warnings to governments and firms in the OECD that the technological gap is closing fast. But they do not adequately capture the current reality. They fail to make a distinction between the deployment of cleaner technologies such as wind power in China, and the extent to which this represents genuine technological leadership. They also fail to account for the vast differences between low-carbon technologies in China – in performance, capabilities and levels of investment.