Reuters

Many experts agree that for the world to rein in rising greenhouse gas emissions, the galloping economies of China and India would have to figure out how to base their future economic expansion on technologies and fuels that are “cleaner” than the fossil fuels the United States and Europe used in their own industrial revolutions long ago.

We hear a lot about how China and India are becoming world leaders in clean technology, producing and installing solar factories and wind farms at a breakneck pace. Problem solved? Well, no.

A couple of developments this week underscored why we should not sleep easy: burgeoning economic growth in China and India requires tons of energy in whatever form it is available. So, yes, while China and India have become bold pioneers in clean technology, they are also enthusiastically developing new sources of the oldest, most polluting fuels. The investments in the latter often dwarf the new clean-tech commitments in terms of dollars and ambition.



The Financial Times reported this week that China and Colombia are discussing a plan to build a rail link across Colombia that could serve as an alternative to the Panama Canal. One major reason that China is pursuing the project, the newspaper notes, is that China has become a major importer of Colombian coal, and a rail link carrying it from the eastern coast to the western coast for export to Asia would remove a logistical barrier.

As we noted last year in our Beyond Fossil Fuel series, Colombia is one of the top five coal exporters in the world, and China imported 164.83 million tons of coal in 2010, 31 percent more than in the previous year.

Meanwhile, my colleagues at Dealbook note that BP is paying $7.2 billion for a 30 percent stake in 23 oil and gas fields in India that are owned by Reliance, India’s largest private-sector company, whose core business is oil. It said that the $7.2 billion was a first payment in what could amount to an eventual investment of over $20 billion.

Compare that to a recent clean-tech advance: this month Suzlon, India’s leading wind energy company, signed what it called the “biggest deal” ever for wind power investment in India, valued over two years at $1.28 billion.