Soft Power, Bright Power

Can China really become a leader in green technologies? Can it transform itself from a naysayer on climate change negotiations – blamed by the developed world for stalling progress on an international climate agreement – to a leader, exhibiting the sort of soft power that it craves? Certainly, China has come a long way in a short period.

Last year, China took the crown as king of wind power. China installed a staggering 16 gigawatts of wind power electricity capacity in 2010. By the end of 2010, China had built 41.8 gigawatts of wind power – in other words, more than one-third of what is now the world's largest wind capacity was put up last year alone. Xinhua says that the wind power gives China the potential to cut more than 90 million tons of carbon dioxide.

Indeed, by 2015, China plans to more than double wind capacity to 90 gigawatts.  Just for reference, a typical large coal-fired plant would be about 600 megawatts, so 90 gigawatts of wind is the same capacity as 150 coal-power plants (though coal is more reliable than wind, so this is not a direct comparison).