According to Bloomberg New Energy Finance, investements in clean technologies fell by 11 percent in 2012 compared to their 2011 levels. They still amounted to 268.7 billion USD or over 200 billion euros.
These news aren’t all that bad even if this decrease marks the end of a seeminlgy unstoppable increase but i has to be mitigated as the amounts invested in 2012 are still five times higher as in 2004.
Another mitigating factor is the decreasing prices of solar and wind energy as less money can buy more panels and turbines.
The drop in investments have been huge in some countries such as the United States of America (-32 percent to $44 billion), Italy (-51 percent to $14.7 billion) and Spain (-68 percent to just three billion dollars).
However, some other countries have been investing much more than they did in the previous years. China invested 20 percent more than in 2011 with a massive $ 67.7 billion ( around 50 billion euros ).
Another country that literally jump-started its cleantech economy is South Africa, which invested $5.5 billion from a few millions in 2011. Last but not least Japan increased its investements by 75 percent to $16.3 billion.
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On a sidenote, one can mention the fact that 2012 was a record year for solar as global sales grew up by 14 percent.
Photo credit : Dutch windmills performing a ballet on December 29th, 2012, Copyright Alice Stollmeyer.