i said Thursday that it would seek a “fair and reasonable” result at Copenhagen but reiterated that rich nations must bear most of the burden for redressing global warming.
A trio of U.S. senators this week introduced a bill to spur solar manufacturing jobs in the United States.
Through additional tax credits, the legislation aims to encourage more U.S. companies to make solar equipment, creating jobs and building up the country’s clean energy economy.
Many “” from politicians and environmentalists to investors – have pinned great hopes on green jobs. Clean energy could create 850,000 manufacturing jobs in the United States, according to recent research Reuters reported this week.
The latest proposal could create 315,000 U.S. jobs along, according to Solar Energy Industries Association, which is pushing for the bill.
But would the extra tax incentives be enough to keep solar power companies producing in the United States?
A decade ago, the United States produced more than 40 percent of the world’s solar photovoltaic cells that convert sunlight into electricity. In 2008, the United States made only 5 percent of the world’s solar cells, according to the solar group.
Those numbers seem bleak. But the solar jobs landscape is not so black and white.
Chinese companies Suntech and Yingli have plans to start manufacturing in the United States. At the same time, the largest U.S. solar company First Solar has announced plans to open a massive plant in China and U.S.-based Evergreen Solar is speeding up its strategy to outsource to China.
Last week Evergreen Solar’s executives had to answer questions from analysts about their plans to move panel assembly to China from Massachusetts.
“There is a lot of capacity going in the ground in Asia. But I think as companies do their own homework and do cost comparison it is compelling that the costs in China or low “” low capital costs, low labor costs, low overhead costs,” said Evergreen Solar’s chief executive Richard Feldt on a conference call with analysts.
“And so I think it will be difficult to be a worldwide supplier of scale and not have some operations in
China.” Feldt added.
China should cut its carbon intensity every year by 4 or 5 percent if it wants to achieve a goal of low-carbon development by 2050, state media on Thursday cited a thinktank report as saying.
In September, Chinese President Hu Jintao promised to put a “notable” brake on the country’s rapidly rising carbon emissions, but dashed hopes he would unveil a hard target to kickstart stalled climate talks.
Hu, the leader of the world’s biggest emitter, told a U.N. summit China would pledge to cut “carbon intensity,” or the amount of carbon dioxide produced for each dollar of economic output, over the decade to 2020.
The official China Daily said the China Council of International Cooperation on Environment and Development would submit a report to the central government on cutting carbon intensity.
“If China is to meet the target of year-on-year emissions cuts of between 4 and 5 percent, it will need to reduce energy intensity by between 75 and 85 percent by 2050,” the newspaper wrote, paraphrasing the report.
“In addition, the proportion of manufacturing industry within the national economic structure would need to be cut from the current 50 percent to around 30 percent by the middle of the century,” it added.
Ever since oil was discovered offshore Ghana in 2007, the world’s oil explorers have been eyeing Guyana. Non-geologists might find that a bit of a leap.
But for Big Oil, there’s a big connection. Africa and South America were once joined, but were separated tens of millions of years ago by continental shift. So many believe the oil-bearing structures in Ghana’s huge Jubilee field could be replicated on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, in places like Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana.
One company that has bet big on the theory is Tullow Oil PLC, a plucky UK-based explorer that is one of the partners in Jubilee.
Tullow says it has identiified “numerous” Jubilee-type leads offshore French Guiana. It began seismi