China top in green tech money

China's green tech industry raked in 44 billion euros (US$63.9 billion) last year, making the Asian giant the world's leading green IT producer in terms of revenue, according to a study released Monday.

According to a report by The Associated Press (AP), the study also revealed that the China ranked second only to Denmark in terms of how much the green technology sector contributes to a country's gross domestic product (GDP). This market segment contributed 1.4 percent of China's GDP, compared with Denmark's 3.1 percent where the green tech industry generated revenues totaling 6.5 billion euros (US$11.7 billion), noted the study, which was commissioned by the World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF).

China's green IT sector grew 77 percent last year and contributed to the majority of the global market growth, said Ward van den Berg, senior research associate at Roland Berger Strategy Consultants which conducted the study.

Citing WWF economist Donald Pols, the AP report said: "The Chinese have made, on the political level, a conscious decision to capture this market and to develop this market aggressively."

He noted that for the Chinese, climate change is not an ideological issue but a fact of life. "While [the United States debates] climate change and the transition to a low-carbon economy, the debate is passed in China," said Pols, noting that the Asian giant is already focusing on implementation. "It's a growth sector, and they want to capture this sector," he added.

Green IT growth in the U.S. has been substantial, at 28 percent per year, since 2008 but cannot compared with China, he said. He noted that the U.S. green tech market generated revenues worth 31.5 billion euros (US$56.7 billion) and was ranked 17th worldwide in terms of the market's contribution, at just 0.3 percent, to the country's GDP.

China's solar cell market is also seeing a shift from export-targeted to home market-targeted, similar to what happened to the country's wind energy equipment market several years ago, said Van den Berg.