About the report
Who’s Winning the Clean Energy Race? 2012 Edition was developed for public informational and educational purposes. It is an update of Pew’s reports tracking 2009, 2010, and 2011 clean energy investment in the
developed and developing countries that make up the Group of 20.
Underlying data for this report were compiled for Pew by Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Currency values are in U.S. dollars. A full description of the data sources and methodology employed in the development of this report can be found on page 30.
Overview
In less than a decade, clean energy transitioned from novelty products to the mainstream of world energy markets. The sector emerged not so much in a linear fashion as an episodic one—in fits and starts associated with the worldwide economic downturn, continent wide debt crises, national policy uncertainty, and intense industry competition. Through it all, however, the clean energy sector moved inexorably forward, with overall investment in 2012 five times greater than it was in 2004.
Although 2012 investment levels worldwide declined 11 percent, to $269 billion, from 2011, the clean energy sector weathered the withdrawal of priority incentives and initiatives offered by governments in numerous key markets, demonstrating its resilience. Reliable clean energy investment data have been collected for nine years now. Looking at the data in three-year increments, average clean energy investment increased by at least $90 billion triennially—from an average of $64 billion in the 2004-06 period to an average of $156 billion in 2007-09 and $245 billion in 2010-12.
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