*Hmmm. Looks like political goodwill isn't enough, Europe.
Link: Planet Ark - Europe Lags, China Catches Up in Clean Energy Race .
Europe Lags, China Catches Up in Clean Energy Race
FRANKFURT - European private sector backing for clean energy technologies is slipping further behind the United States, while China is catching up, new figures show.
Innovation funding, or venture capital, gives clean energy entrepreneurs a leg-up to develop blueprints to curb pollutants, improve energy efficiency or develop new renewable energy sources.
While European Union politicians are big on climate change targets – they recently announced ambitious greenhouse gas emissions goals to 2020 – clean energy start-up companies risk starving for cash.
"Europe is getting kicked," said Nicholas Parker, chairman of the US-based data provider Cleantech Group, which hosted a clean energy conference in Frankfurt on Tuesday.
"Europe has technological and political leadership and public interest but a lack of capital. In the United States we have a vacuum at the federal level and then Silicon Valley," he said, referring to the Californian innovation centre.
"(California Governor Arnold) Schwarzenegger is on trade missions globally selling California as the cleantech state." (((Okay, technically, Arnold is European.)))
Venture capital backing of clean technologies is directly creating around 140,000 jobs annually, he estimated.
Venture capital is the first phase of funding for start-up companies which do not yet make a profit, followed later by private equity and debt finance....
