News

• US surges, Asia wanes as Q1 clean-tech investment reaches $2.6 billion

  07 April 2011

  Global clean-tech venture capital (VC) investment surged 52% to $2.57 billion in the first quarter, buoyed by high value, late-stage deals and strong performance among North American companies, according to analysis by California-based research firm the Cleantech Group. However, the number of transactions in the quarter dropped.

• Pension funds increase investments in wind farms

  07 April 2011

  PensionDanmark, a pension fund with around €14 billion ($20 billion) under management, has made its second investment in offshore wind farms and is planning more.

• Corporates say clean-tech investment is good for revenue

  07 April 2011

  Almost three-quarters of corporations surveyed by consultancy Ernst & Young plan to increase or significantly increase clean-tech budgets between 2012 and 2014, reflecting a growing view that such spending can improve corporate revenues.

• California's renewables target to be undermined by weaker Senate bill?

  06 April 2011

  California's aggressive targets on renewable energy could be weakened by too much flexibility and a lack of sanctions for failing utilities, a leading analyst has warned.

• Norway makes first payment to Guyana under pioneering forest carbon deal

  06 April 2011

  Norway is to immediately transfer $40 million to Guyana in the first payment under a novel deal to protect the South American country's forests.

• CDP investors' demands shift from disclosure to mitigation

  06 April 2011

  A 'vanguard' group of Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) signatories managing $7.6 trillion of assets have called on the world's largest companies to implement "cost-effective" greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reductions.

• US officials vent over lack of clean-tech policy certainty

  05 April 2011

  US government officials working to facilitate investment in the clean-tech sector say they are just as frustrated with the lack of federal policy certainty as private investors.

• Fukushima disaster poses hard questions on climate targets

  04 April 2011

  Climate targets will be harder to meet and ambitious nuclear building programmes around the world will become more expensive, commentators said, in the aftermath of the suspected Fukushima meltdown.

• UK urged to convert nuclear stockpile into economic opportunity

  31 March 2011

  The UK should turn its stockpiles of spent nuclear fuel into a £10 billion ($16 billion) economic opportunity, according to a report from the Smith School of Enterprise and Environment.

• Invest before lights turned out on US renewables subsidies – BNEF

  31 March 2011

  Renewable energy financing will continue to recover this year, but project developers should take advantage of incentives offered by the US federal government while they still can, according to a Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) analyst.