Green Energy Investors Flock to China

Despite the ongoing global financial crisis, Pernick sees permanence in China's current renewable energy push, given its people's increasing concern about environmental problems within the country's borders and global concerns about the country's role in curbing greenhouse gas emissions.

In an August report, the Worldwatch Institute said that China accounted for 57% of the world's growth of carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels from 2000 to 2007.

The link between China's renewable-energy push and its environment was brought to the world's attention this summer, when the Chinese government took drastic steps to clean up Beijing's notoriously polluted air for the 2008 Olympic Games.

"The great thing about China is, if a mandate comes down from the national level, it can quickly be deployed," Pernick said.

Even in the midst of the ongoing global financial crisis, China remains an attractive market for green technologies, according to a survey of venture capitalists and technology company executives released Wednesday by the law firm DLA Piper.

Nearly nine of 10 survey respondents said China's consumer market will be an "exploitable opportunity" for green technology companies, DLA Piper reported.

Still, Pernick doesn't see China becoming the "mother of all markets" when it comes to the growing market for renewable energy sources.

"This is a global phenomenon," he said. China is "just going to be one node in the network."

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