World Class Faculty & Research / September 10, 2015

Wind Energy, Uber behind Green Trends in China, India

SMITH BRAIN TRUST -- China is poised to drive a projected global surge in wind energy, while a looming Uber stake in India could make that country’s taxi industry more carbon friendly, according to comments by Smith professor Anil K. Gupta reported from this week’s Global Cleantech Summit in Helsinki. Gupta, the Michael D. Dingman Chair in Strategy and Entrepreneurship at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business, was among the conference’s featured speakers. 

The experts projected “dramatic growth” for wind generation. Gupta, according to Business Day, said China would drive this growth: “China’s attitude has changed since 2009, when it took the view that environmental pollution was a U.S. and European problem. Now, under public pressure to address air and water quality, China has set ambitious goals to reduce emissions and clean up rivers. It is also becoming the world’s biggest market for hybrid electric vehicles.”

Separately from the summit, the blog Carbon Brief reports that Gupta highlighted Uber as pushing a trend not necessarily under the clean-tech umbrella, but carbon-friendly nonetheless: “Uber in India, they're talking about investing between $1 billion and $2 billion more in the next couple of years. They're going to invest $2 billion in China. And Uber is neither the number one player in India nor in China. Their local competitors are as strong, and they're investing billions of dollars. The Uber phenomenon in India is now going not just at the level of cars, but at the level of motorbikes and three wheelers and so on. So we have to see the impact of these technologies in terms of the efficiency with which things happen."

More broadly, expect the global market for clean technology to be worth $8.7 trillion, equivalent to 3.1 percent of the global GDP, said another speaker at the summit, Ross Bruton, a senior industry analyst at Frost & Sullivan Europe. By then, it would be so integrated into society that it would no longer be a separate industry but simply best practice for financial and environmental reasons, he said.

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