There is a serious fact-based case to be made for why China is not crushing the United States in a clean energy race. Unfortunately, Bjorn Lomborg’s op-ed in today’s Washington Post makes the argument using a mix of truth and nonsense. This won’t do much but perpetuate an ongoing battle of misleading statistics and dubious interpretations. Read more »

The Obama administration budget request for FY2012 is out. The contrast with the House Republican alternative is stark. Nowhere is this more clear than in funding for international climate change activities, where the administration has scaled back its request modestly from its FY2011 submission (but is still asking for considerably more than was appropriated for FY2010), while the House Republican proposal envisions eliminating almost all U.S. spending. Read more »

The New York Times “Room for Debate” asked seven smart experts whether the United States can compete with China on green technology. Their responses, published yesterday, are well worth reading. I worry, though, that they reflect a peculiar, and increasingly unproductive, debate. Read more »

Keith Bradsher reports in yesterday’s New York Times that Congress is forcing the Defense Department to forego purchases of Chinese solar panels. My initial instinct was to scream “Protectionism!” – but there’s actually a strong case for what Congress is doing. Read more »

China has been much praised for its target of cutting energy intensity by twenty percent from 2005 to 2010. Indeed many of the measures it’s using to back that target up are impressive. If we’re being honest with ourselves, though, we need to admit that we have no clue whether the target is being met. Worse, we need to acknowledge that some of the steps being taken to meet it are downright counterproductive. Read more »

I wrote last week about how Chinese gains in solar energy could help, rather than hurt, U.S. businesses. My argument was that if China focused on those parts of the value chain where it had a natural edge, and the United States focused on those parts where it was most suited, they could together bring down the cost of solar. That would increase the market for solar, and they would both win. In particular, I argued that Chinese strength in the later stages of solar manufacturing wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Read more »

Keith Bradsher has a largely excellent article in Wednesday’s Times that’s focused on the (possibly illegal) advantages that the Chinese government is providing its clean energy firms. In reporting the piece, though, he falls prey to a deceptive story about the success of Chinese solar at the expense of U.S. industry. Since it’s a story that regularly shows up in one form or another, it’s important to understand why there’s less than meets the eye. (I’ll have more to say on the broader trade issues in several upcoming articles and posts.) Read more »

Yingli Solar, the Chinese rooftop solar photovoltaic company, has been making waves with its prominent sponsorship of the 2010 FIFA World Cup. The Times picked up the story yesterday, quoting a Yingli spokesperson who said that the company “pondered” its decision “profoundly, deeply”. My colleague Liz Economy flagged the sponsorship last week. Noting that Yingli’s ads were running next to ones from McDonalds, she worried that China was embracing the future while U.S. companies were stuck representing the past. Read more »

I wrote about the proposed Chinese carbon tax on Monday. Xinhua reports (h/t Weathervane — the link is to a two month old article that I hadn’t noticed) that it might be partly aimed at avoiding any U.S. or European carbon tariffs: Read more »