How China overtook the US in renewable energy

A new report shows that China is now the world's number one investor in renewable technology. This is the data
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Solar panel at a workshop in in Hangzhou
China renewable energy: An employee displays a solar panel at a workshop in a factory in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province. Photograph: LANG LANG/REUTERS

China has overtaken the US for the first time in a league table of investments in low-carbon energy among the G-20, according to a new report by not for profit group the Pew Charitable Trusts published this week.

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The report found that despite an overall 6.6 per cent global decline in clean energy investments last year, China invested almost twice as much as the United States in clean energy during 2009.

But the US still leads in energy capacity. It's interesting for the UK too:

• third in overall clean energy investments
• fourth in five-year clean energy investment growth rate
• fifth in the percentage of total power it receives from clean energy sources – ahead of France, China and the US

Pew have kindly shared the data with us - what can you do with it?

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Data summary

Renewable energy investment by country

Click heading to sort
Rank
Country
2009 investment, $
Renewable Energy Capacity, GigaWatts
Percentage total power, %

SOURCE: Pew Research
1 China 34,600,000,000 52.5 4
2 US 18,600,000,000 53.4 4
3 UK 11,200,000,000 7.5 8.4
4 EU - other 10,800,000,000 12.3 6.7
5 Spain 10,400,000,000 22.4 30.1
6 Brazil 7,400,000,000 9.1 9.8
7 Germany 4,300,000,000 36.2 29
8 Canada 3,300,000,000 7.6 4.3
9 Italy 2,600,000,000 9.8 4.9
10 India 2,300,000,000 16.5 9
11 Mexico 2,100,000,000 3.2 3.3
12 France 1,800,000,000 9.4 8.1
13 Turkey 1,600,000,000 0.6 0.4
14 Australia 1,000,000,000 3.3 3.1
15 Japan 800,000,000 12.9 1.3
16 Indonesia 354,000,000 1.1 4.2
17 South Africa 125,000,000    
18 Argentina 80,000,000 0.5 1.9
19 South Korea 20,000,000 0.7 0.8

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