The U.S. and China have officially placed opening bids in climate change negotiations. This past Thursday, China announced a reduction in emissions intensity. This article looks at the difference in the pre-negotiation targets, how important this preliminary dialogue is for setting the tone at Copenhagen, and why the renewable energy industry should care.

President Obama is slated to speak in Copenhagen on December 9th, where he will propose emission caps for the U.S. in the range of 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020 and 83 percent by 2050. This is the type of leadership we need to legislate for a sustainable future and spur a clean energy economy and bring the solar industry to new levels of production and integration.

There is no getting around it. Leadership from China and the U.S., the world’s two biggest emitters of greenhouse gases (GHGs), is imperative if any sort of successful international agreement is to come out of the Copenhagen climate change negotiations.

Suntech Power Holdings Co Ltd just can’t seem to stay out of the news lately. News outlets have mentioned the Chinese solar manufacturer’s name in connection with—among other things—a potential import tariff hike on solar panels, Pakistan’s incipient solar market and, most recently, Suntech’s plans for its first U.S. plant, around Phoenix, AZ. Now, Forbes [...]

Yesterday, U.S. President Obama and the People’s Republic of China President Hu released a joint-statement on issues relating to climate change and renewable energy. The two countries are making concrete efforts to work together in order to scale renewable energy such as wind, solar, advanced biofuels, etc. and to achieve a cleaner way to burn coal. In the statement, it is clear both countries want to see a substantive document come out of Copenhagen without sacrificing the right to economic development.

SunTech has been quite the news-maker these days.  The Chinese solar-panel maker recently announced plans to open its first U.S.-based plant in the Phoenix area. The new facility is expected to employ over 75 full-time employees and, depending on how the U.S. solar market performs, may double the number on payroll within a year. In [...]

Massachusetts-based solar cell manufacturer Evergreen Solar, bellwether of the Bay State’s push for clean energy, announced on Wednesday its plans to move solar panel assembly to China. The statement, appearing in the company’s filing of earnings for the third quarter of 2009, arrives less than a year after Evergreen opened the doors to its much-lauded [...]

A change in how imported solar panels are classified may impose up to $70 million in unexpected tariffs. As reported Wednesday by the New York Times: The issue began with a short letter to United States customs officials last December from the small American subsidiary of a Spanish energy company. The subsidiary, GES USA, wanted [...]

In what may appear at first glance to be a self-defeating move, SolarWorld, Germany’s third-largest solar company in terms of revenue, has called for the German government to hasten its reduction of the lucrative solar subsidies that made solar so successful there in the first place. The announcement, which was made during the European Photovoltaic [...]

Not content to sit idle as their Chinese rivals implement aggressive pricing strategies overseas, German solar manufacturers are fighting back by looking to a higher power. BSW (Bundesverband Solarwirtschaft, the German Solar Industry Association) has stated that it will decide whether or not to request regulatory action by the end of the year over what [...]