Have you ever read something that makes you actually wince? A study or some statistics that make you feel a combination of disappointment and concern? That happened to me today when I saw the latest report published by the Pew Environment Group showing the global list of countries investments in low carbon energy technology in 2010. Surely the nation that consumes the most energy on the planet should be investing the most in changing that course, but instead somehow the US is embarrassingly not top of the list, a position held by China but more incredulously nor is the US second, a position now held by Germany. If a single study ever told a story this would be the one, happily the overall global investment in clean energy is exciting at an exciting rate but the biggest consumers of energy should also top the list in investment. Incidentally the UK (my homeland) also had an embarrassing slip from ninth down to thirteenth on the table.

China tops the list again having invested $54.4 billion last year compared with $39.1 bn in 2009, in second comes Germany with an investment of $41.2 bn which when you consider the population of the country (81.6 million) shows that the national commitment to clean energy per capita both there and in Italy makes other countries results quite shameful. The US came in third at $34 bn despite a population almost 4 times the size of Germany’s. Encouragingly investment grew amongst all of the top five nations but fell by an amazing 70 percent in the UK during 2010. Economic conditions will surely be blamed but that would be suggesting none of the top five also have been slowly pulling out of a recession simultaneously.

Unique electricity pylons in Iceland

The global results are far more encouraging with a net 30 percent increase over 2009 and a remarkable 630% level of growth since 2004. Investment in wind energy was approximately 2.2 times higher than solar during 2010, with China and Germany both heavily investing. Interestingly China is also benefiting from the production side of things as the country also leads the world in the manufacturing of both wind turbines and solar energy equipment. The largest one-year growth over 2009 was attributed to Argentina who increased their annual investment by over 550% in 2010. Analysts in the UK have been embarrassed by the drop which they have blamed on policy uncertainty due to a change in government combined with an unstable financial market, whereas nations such as China, India and Germany in particular have all demonstrated a more stable national policy demonstrating a commitment to renewable energy. It’s an interesting table but one which would be more useful based on population and while we all get excited by events such as the Olympics or the World Cup this would really be one where you want to rank in the medal positions based on per capita spending. Taking the top 10 and not checking my math I believe the top three per capita would actually be Germany, Italy and Canada. I’ll try and get the full list and expand upon that ranking based on population.