• China’s Belt and Road Initiative now favouring renewables investment, though absolute amounts falling rapidly

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      Patrick Lavery

      Combustion Industry News Editor


Analysis by the International Institute of Green Finance at the Central University of Finance and Economics in Beijing has found that investment as part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative has shifted to a majority going to renewable energy. In 2019, 38% of investment was in wind, solar and hydropower, and in 2020 that percentage rose to 57%, athough this was in the context of the absolute amount invested dropping by 54% from 2019 to US$47 billion (€39 billion). While Christoph Nedopil Wang, director at the International Institute of Green Finance said that the shift to a higher proportion of renewables was a result of a recognition of environmental and financial risk on the part of the Chinese government, there was also a rise in the proportion of coal firing being funded (from 15% in 2018 to 27% in 2020), which may mean that there is still value attributed to ‘baseload’ power generation.