MISSING the BEAR

I want to call out Julian Wong (@GreenLeapFwd) on something he said recently that bothered me. He was on the Mid-Morning Report, Minnesota public radio, on 8 February talking about China’s cleantech revolution:

Wong: That’s certainly an angle that my centre, the centre for american progress is pushing, the national security angle. Perhaps it’s just a sign of the times, a sign of the current political situation where we’re in the throws of one of the worst economic recessions ever and what’s present on voters minds are the economic woes and how we get ourselves out of this an create new jobs.

He went on to imply, throughout the interview, that the national security, energy security angle was both more useful for understanding China’s cleantech push, but also for making the American public more accepting of China’s cleantech push, rather than seeing it as threatening. He then (ineffectively, and I’ll explain below) went on to draw a parallel between energy security and an improved discourse on cleantech and China.

I want to say that I’ve often asked Mr. Wong for comment on articles, he’s been very helpful and responsive to me, for which I am very appreciative and I respect him and his opinion very much, and much of the time he’s spot on. While he is correct that much of the time pundits unhelpfully frame cleantech in a US versus China, realpolitik, zero-sum game kind of way, Wong said that it’s more helpful to frame it in an energy security issue. This doesn’t seem much of a distinction to me however-- we’re still competing over resources.



The language we use when establishing relationships is very important, as are the cultural values that drive how we do so. By nature, American culture is competitive and because of economic theories like comparative advantage that stem from capitalism’s evolution in the West, competition has become the motivator, the way Americans relate to the world. Without digressing into a discussion of economic revaluation, we need to think about what competition implies: zero sum, real politik, winner take all, survival of the fittest, games, versus; dichotomies inherent in the term are winner and loser, benefits and costs, acquisition and sale, abundance and scarcity, positive and negative.

China cannot win the cleantech revolution because that implies that the US will lose: money, jobs, and resources to China. Energy security as a cleantech discourse is not much different in that it implies a certain selfishness, not needing to be dependent upon others and is abrasively independent-- things that are also implied in competition. To me, the word “security” twinges my neck with fear, it smacks of war (on terror) and threat.

Mr. Wong and others are correct in asserting that the cleantech revolution needn’t be a competition between China and the US and that it would be beneficial to both parties as well as to the global spread of cleantech that the relationship be more of a partnership, a shared development. The competitive mindset will hold back innovation and best practice in production techniques, will likely slow the overall rate cleantech development and implementation, and may even encourage devolution into petty trade wars.

But shared development and partnerships implies dependency-- “national security” implies the opposite. How is it possible that it’s more useful to frame cleantech in China and the US in “national security” rhetoric than competition?

The financial crisis and the climate change issue overlap in that they both demand a revaluation of resources, economically and sociologically, of the same nature. A “green new deal” deals with issues of sustainability in lending practices and wealth creation the same way sustainability necessarily implies more efficient use and distribution of scarce resources. Inherent in the sustainability discourse are these notions of efficiency and distribution which in turn imply the necessity for collectivity and cooperation. But national security is very isolating.

I’m sorry Mr. Wong, but it appears you’ve missed the bear.

I like to have my data with a bit of perspective don’t you? (& for now I’ll leave aside the necessary discussion we need to have about this US versus them nonsense.)





I have no idea if this is the right way to compare smart grid spending. I know very little about energy technology and infrastructure. An important consideration is that China, presumably, has a longer way to go in terms of its infrastructure improvement than the US.

Some things I'm not sure of:
Is it indeed more expensive to upgrade an old power grid than to build anew?
Is it safe to assume that there's more energy infrastructure in place already in an urban area than a rural area? And is it more easily (i.e. less expensive) upgradeable in an urban area than rural area?

How about it, out there? I really want to learn so please leave a comment!

Figures for Btu projected consumption

US kWh consumed 2008
Note: US electricity consumption down year on year in 2009, 3.6%, so I was being generous here.

China kWh consumed 2009
I used Chinese government figures because presumably, that’s what they are calculating their spending on, so I don’t want to get into a discussion about how Chinese government figures are exaggerated/inflated/false.

rural figures China

rural figures US (assumes 20% in 2000, generalized to 2008 estimate)

In a recent interview I did with a social networking site for b2b greening strategies, the CEO of the company said the company’s expansion depends on US demand for green energy (and the demand for US businesses to provide green technology). This b2b social networking site is particularly useful because one of its functions is to act as an enabler between businesses, creating a competition free space so that businesses can collectively and cooperatively find green solutions. But the CEO's missed the bear: It won’t be US green tech companies that will lead the world in green technology, they will be Chinese. If there’s any market that ready for green, clean business adjustment it’s China. He’s also betting on traditional growth and consumption models.

China recently abandoned it’s “buy Chinese” policy for wind turbines. In an era of increasing protectionism it seems odd that China would do this especially as it has been the target of protectionist policies itself lately. But it makes sense when we consider that China has the global market cornered in light weight wind turbines, according to a report by Climate Group (China’s Clean Revolution volume II). China will even be funding and supplying a wind turbine farm in Texas, to its advantage: 1700 net jobs created and 30% $1.5 billion financing is from US stimulus money. And while China is still heavily dependent upon fossil fuels for production, according to the Climate Group, its continued iterations of 5 year plans have placed a robust legal and regulatory infrastructure at the base of future green development.


Meanwhile (shocker!) the US lags behind: From businessgreen.asia: “Energy Secretary Steven Chu warned that without a robust climate bill the US was in danger of being eclipsed in the burgeoning market for clean technologies by Chinese and European firms - fears that already appear to be being borne out.”

Somehow I doubt the US’s climate bill will be robust enough to give US businesses the impetus they need to beat or match China in green energy R&D, if for no other reason than whatever version of the climate bill passes the US is only seeking to reduce gHg emissions by either 17% or 20% by 2020 (8.5% of which is negated on account of economic recession-- here’s a question: why not go further?!), well behind most industrialized countries (17% by the way is also behind China). Both the Senate and House bills give too many carbon credits away to business (complimentary permits will keep the price too low) and do little to nothing about agriculture subsidies that keep us eating unsustainably (how you ask? corn subsidies = corn syrup for starters). Neither bill is tough enough on methane (one requires capture the other makes it optional, where methane is arguably a more malicious gHg than CO2).

Vivek Wadhwa has written about the Brain Gain phenomenon beginning to occur in Asia: if we consider universities as the R&D base of the world, then this is going to bottom out. His recent studies of US Chinese (and Indian) graduates find that these students are more likely to go home to what they see as more sustainable economic futures and a more supportive family life style.

The Chinese government clearly “gets” climate change a lot better than its counterparts in most developed countries: it has devoted 40% (Climate Group, Reuters says 34%) of its stimulus package to green projects. The US, by comparison, 12% (hate to think what that looks like if you put it in per capita measure). Despite the fact that they haven’t explicitly made emissions reductions commitments, their commitment to green tech R&D, efficient cars, and greening their energy shows that they are in a race to the bottom (lowest emissions) and they’re playing to win.

Anybody who has studied development knows that top down models work as long as the private sector is on board too. So is it? Sort of: According to Tang Hao in a commentary on chinadialogue.net, “China’s local government officials are evaluated by their economic successes – and so powerful companies are often treated leniently. From the point of view of many firms, law enforcement is the exception rather than the rule; any official who does otherwise will be seen as a trouble-maker.” Hao explains that it is a misconception that multinational firms are attracted to China only because of cheap of labour: it’s their lax environmental law as well. But business will reform because the government says so, and there is a trend in banking and investment towards green business. If it’s true that pollution is the result of bad business practice, then China is ripe for the kind of corporate cultural transformation that this b2b social networking site can offer.

Beyond China, looking at the US domestic market, the b2b social network CEO has also missed the bear on demand and consumption. A key to moving green forward is revaluing the economy and refocusing growth away from demand and consumption. It’s not possible that the US will demand increasing amounts of energy, at least if all goes well. Green energy is meant to be efficient and in terms of absolute demand should decrease. As it becomes more efficient the US should demand less energy, consume less not more. What would increase is welfare as the US goes green, but the capacity to do this and the future market drivers for clean green tech will be in Asia.

I’ve blogged before about China needing to step up and lead the world on climate change. Whatever agreement is reached at Copenhagen, by the time it needs to be implemented the Chinese will be the dominant world economy. Betting your company’s future on the UK and US green tech industries, Mr. CEO? Think you’ve missed the bear. Hire some Mandarin speakers and computer programmers, quick!

Missing the Bear on green jobs:

Labour’s conference pamphlet (via @thedancingflea) talks about reviving the British economic future using green jobs but offers conflicting policy in two breaths.

“Many of our major cities and urban centres display a rich diversity of cultures. This strength can create tensions unless we manage the impact carefully. Increased diversity requires us to respect and honour difference while maintaining cohesion and the solidarity that underpins universal services and a healthy society. Migration remains an important driver of economic success. Our history is of a nation built on openness-- to trade, ideas, and talent-- and our future must be too.”(The Choice for Britain, 17)

Yes migration has done and it does, but Labour doesn't seem to quite grasp how. How, for example, does social cohesion feed diversity-- isn’t it an anathema? Several pages later Labour shows that it’s missed the bear:

“We believe a tough but flexible system, rather than an arbitrary quota or cap, is better for British business and the British economy.”(28)

Really? How is it that Labour expects to “see a significant rise in professional and high-skill jobs over the next decade” and realize returns from “rising demand from the middle-class in China and India, and increased demand for personalized goods and services in the UK.” (26) How is it that Labour expects that Britain will see economic returns from green innovation if its immigration policy blocks those with new ideas from migrating or even being educated there?

IPR and innovation guru Vivek Wadhwa writes in a new piece, “It is necessary to accept that R&D will migrate to areas of higher growth in order to tap into the new brains in those labor markets, and to gain better knowledge of those markets as well as tap into cultural and economic ties.” For this reason, he explains, it’s vital that developed countries (his article specifically sites the US, but the same can be easily applied to the UK and EU) allow freedom of movement between China and India, and the US in order to encourage the development of innovative ideas from business.



The points based system Labour has come up with is staunchly protectionist (also read here and here). In one breath Labour has admitted that in order to grow the British economy in the future it needs an infusion of brain power from outside its borders, and in the next said that that brain power is only welcome if it conforms to British culture. New ideas won’t be bourne from conforming to British culture. Isn’t that the whole point of soliciting new ideas in the first place-- to discover something that doesn’t conform?

The problem Wadhwa explains (in another new piece), “Only 7% of Chinese students, 9% of European students, and 25% of Indian students believe that the best days of the U.S. economy lie ahead. Conversely, 74% of Chinese students and 86% of Indian students believe that the best days for their home country’s economy lie ahead.”

In other words, the place to be for innovation and opportunity to add to and learn from new research is about to shift away from the US and UK’s universities. The US and the UK can either fight it, as they are doing, with tighter immigration policies (though kudoos to the EU for making visa policy extra accessible to Chinese), they are effectively nailing shut their own economic coffins. According to the American Chamber of Commerce in China, US visa policies have had severely negative effects on Chinese-American business relations:

“In our 2001 survey on the business environment in China, 39 percent commented that U.S. visa policies had a slightly negative or strongly negative impact on their business. In our 2004 survey, those suffering a negative effect went up to 70 percent. Asked if travel to the U.S. is substantially more difficult than to other countries, 55 percent responded that it is and 50 percent said they now send people to other countries for business meetings that would previously have been held in the United States.”

Unfortunately for the US and UK, China is already poised to lead the way renewables. India’s got plenty to offer in terms of social entrepreneurial innovations. But the British points systems and recent restrictions on US visas are keeping students out. Students who might share ideas, stay and teach for a few years, interact as postgrad students with undergrads, and feed more innovation in Western economies. The US and the UK are starting from behind already and doesn’t look like they are doing much to catch up.

Labour claims that it’s concerned about another “lost generation” of British workers, but it’s policies will lose that generation for Britain. And it isn’t just the visas: Labour’s policy on renewables has been all talk and no swagger. Lest we forget Vestas. And more could be done to sway the public, especially the rural public, towards wind power.

Labour hasn’t just missed the bear, they’ve mistaken it for a fox in green dress, asked it to dance, and are about to be eaten by it.

Obama’s on to something: No, actually, it isn’t America’s job to lead.

Bill McKibben at 350.org, David Waskow at the Guardian, Matthew McDermott at Treehugger.com, indeed a broad swath of the green media are Missing the Bear by criticizing Obama for “failing to step up and lead” at Climate Week at the UN. (Lord Stern, to his credit, has it right.) As an economic empire in sunset and politically limited in its domestic sphere with what it can do about climate change, Obama’s step away from leadership is (surprising from an American President) right and proper.


He said:

“But make no mistake: this cannot be solely America's endeavor. Those who used to chastise America for acting alone in the world cannot now stand by and wait for America to solve the world's problems alone. We have sought - in word and deed - a new era of engagement with the world. Now is the time for all of us to take our share of responsibility for a global response to global challenges.”

Full text from HuffPo

He also said:

“Those wealthy nations that did so much to damage the environment in the 20th century must accept our obligation to lead. But responsibility does not end there. While we must acknowledge the need for differentiated responses, any effort to curb carbon emissions must include the fast-growing carbon emitters who can do more to reduce their air pollution without inhibiting growth. And any effort that fails to help the poorest nations both adapt to the problems that climate change has already wrought - and travel a path of clean development - will not work.”

Full text from HuffPo

The “fast-growing carbon emitters” to which Obama is referring are China and India (and Brazil and South Africa). Helping the poorest nations that will suffer first and most quickly from climate change is a duty that will fall not only to “developed” countries but also to China as it innovates clean technology. Obama isn’t considering China like a developing country here, he’s calling China developed.

The pre-circulated draft text (from the NYT) supports this:

“We must also energize our efforts to put other developing nations – especially the poorest and most vulnerable – on a path to sustainable growth. These nations do not have the same resources to combat climate change as countries like the United States or China do, but they have the most immediate stake in a solution.”

Though this passage wasn’t used as such and any reference to China as a developed country was not made in the speech Obama actually gave at the UN, he knows what he’s on about. China will surpass the US as the global economic powerhouse by 2035. India will as well, by 2045.*

China is already leading the way on green technology according to a report by the Climate Group. President Hu Jintao has vowed that China will generate 15% of it’s power from renewable energy by 2020 and will plant a forest “the size of Norway.” Nicholas Stern recently said that China’s current carbon footprint is probably higher than estimated: the economically more productive provinces already have carbon footprints higher than France and Britain.

Rest assured if there is any country that “gets” climate change, it’s China. And any criticism leveled at China for not making exact commitments in the run up to Copenhagen is highly unfounded, as is any leveled at “uncooperative” India. (India is more likely being sly like a fox.) Both countries will need green technology intellectual property rights and trade negotiations to go their way. China and India have the wherewithal to dominate the global economy in the near future. This will happen. The question is how quickly-- this is what’s at risk in the Copenhagen negotiations.

What Obama has done is acknowledge the role the next economic superpowers will play on the world stage and the waning of American superspower. China already wields a great deal of soft power and is poised to wield a great deal more in the future. Like other global economic powers it has begun to guarantee its future food security by buying up land in Africa. Reforming the global financial system will be impossible without China, especially because global growth will be determined by consumption and savings in China and India (leaving the issue of growth as a strategy aside here). But China (likewise India) has a lot of soft power to gain by developing as cleanly as possible, soft power it will be able to wield in the future with both the old developed world (Europe and the US) and with the developing world. The period in which it will set the example is now until 2050 at the latest, when both economies will overtake the US as the global economic leader.

The upshots are these: The developing world can be pressed to cooperate on climate change based on the extent to which emerging markets cooperate. China and India have a real chance to set an example for developing countries to grow clean and green. And later, spread economic benefits through green tech proliferation.

China can hold the US to account for cutting its carbon intensity: The US is currently bogged down in the domestic politics of climate change. It’s doubtful legislation for adequate emissions cuts will pass the Senate. John Kerry said this summer that it’s doubtful any Cop15 agreement will be ratified by the Senate. Healthcare is easily perceived by both the public and the administration as a more pressing concern than climate change and odds are that ballsy climate change legislation is where the administration will sacrifice in favor of its health care plans. China can wield soft power in the future to pressure the US do what it should about climate change. Mentioning China the way the Obama administration did in the pre-circulated draft may indicate that the Obama administration is counting on this external pressure later to take a second run at stronger domestic climate change legislation and even make certain the Cop15 agreement is passed.

For the future, the US isn’t the country that needs to lead the world on climate change. The West should stop looking to the US to lead and acknowledge, as Obama has done, that for a green clean future it’s up to China and India to show the way.

Update, 17.58pm 24 Sep, 2009: as it turns out I may not be very far off the mark on China's ability to help the Obama administration exert pressure on the Senate to pass climate legislation. I just read this article on Climateprogress.org.

"The bottom line, though, is that it is getting harder and harder for Senators to hide behind China as a reason for US inaction. Quite the reverse. It is increasingly clear that absent passage of the clean energy and climate bill, we have little chance of competing with China and, at the same time, we are pretty much the last hold out for serious global action. If we get a bill, we will get an international deal."


*Granted this estimate is from Goldman Sachs in 2007, pre-financial meltdown, but it’s reasonable to expect that all the crisis has done is put off Chinese and Indian global economic dominance by a few years.

Last night BBC's NewsNight reviewed DEFRA's new report on food security. The report says, in a nutshell, global food production will have to increase by 70% and become local and sustainable. I blogged on this topic last month on my other blog, World Coloured Glasses. NewsNight missed the bear and instead of providing a useful and educated discussion let panic and uninformed comment prevail.

A few highlights:

Peter Kendall, director of the NFU (National Farmer's Union) said that countries that are selling their land to foreign interests do so by choice. No they don't. (Big surprise Kirsty missed this one) Developing country governments stripped bare for revenue by SAP's and limited in maneuverability by a global economic infrastructure that favours wealthy countries with high bond ratings don't have a choice. And you can bet the people of those countries aren't making the choice to sell that land. Their future food security isn't being looked after.

Phillipe LeGrain (don't even get me started) actually got away with saying we should buy more food from abroad, "I think we should have a free choice to buy British pork or Brazilian pork or pork from other countries, the point is we ought to have a choice." Yes, because free market economics has proven effective as of late. Government regulation? Absolutely unnecessary, just look at the financial crisis.

LeGrain went on, "Britain is a rich and densely populated country which means that land is very expensive... it means that farmers have an incentive to economize on land, to farm ever more intensively... and that leads to problems whether it's animal welfare or food safety problems." And a moment later, "I think we could import everything we need from Brazil." Kirsty, completely missing the bear moves to Kendall, "And now you're being asked to farm with less." (Rip hair from head, groan, roll eyes).

Hold up. First, we've glossed over the bit about land being more expensive because "Britain is a rich country." The British government could have protected agricultural land if it wanted to, if it didn't pander to global agribusiness. Second, farmers have to farm "ever more intensively" is a load of bullpuckey-- you can farm sustainably and sufficiently and make a living with the proper business and economic incentive structure and farming knowledge. If you don't believe me, go ask the Grass Point Farm cooperative in rural Wisconsin (I'm sure there are equivalent cooperative in the UK), or indigenous farming communities in Latin America, Asia, and Africa that have been farming sustainably for generations. Over time, it has been empirically proven crop yield decreases with intensive farming practices because you strip soil fertility. So no, British farmers aren't being asked to "do more with less," they are being asked to farm sustainably with carbon neutral techniques.

Maybe NewsNight could have used the segment time for a useful explorative discussion of sustainable farming techniques, the Slowfood movement, and economic revaluation that would allow for such systemic change. Instead fear mongering-- protect your food, fetch the pitchforks, trade protectionism, subsidize agrobusiness to buy up (more) land in developing countries. I was waiting for a population control pundit to pop up and start talking about birth rates in Africa and sterilization...err... I mean family planning policy from the 1960's and 70's.

Missed the Bear NewsNight? Yes, yes I think so.