"By working together we can promote clean energy technologies, helping meet our energy and climate challenges while creating jobs here at home," the secretary said.
China and India are two of the world's fastest-growing economies and have the world's largest populations. Opportunities for clean energy are rife: China is the third-largest economy in the world but the number-one carbon emitter. Its manufacturing processes and energy policies are dated and inefficient; China requires six times the energy per unit of gross domestic product that Italy does.
And with the middle classes in both countries growing, demand for solar power and other forms of clean energy are likely to increase. In addition, the global community will likely pressure China and India to become greener at the forthcoming climate talks in Copenhagen.
The U.S. will soon become the largest consumer of solar power, and Asian manufacturers will be eager to supply the American market. Even American companies may move production there: Massachusetts-based Evergreen Solar is moving solar panel production to lower-cost China, for example.
