China to Be World's Top Manufacturer of Green Energy Technology

About 16 percent of China's electricity came from renewable sources in 2006, led by the world's largest number of hydroelectric generators, according to the report. The nation's goal is to increase the proportion of renewable electricity to 23 percent by 2020.

China invested over $12 billion in renewable energy in 2007, second only to Germany. The nation needs to invest another $398 billion to reach its 2020 renewable energy goals, an average of $33 billion a year, the report said.

The government wants to reduce the amount of energy China uses to produce each unit of economic output by 20 percent in two years and has told its 1,000 largest energy-consuming companies to cut their power consumption even more, according to the report.

China's six largest solar-cell makers had a market value of over $14 billion at the beginning of this year.

In 2007, each of China's 1.3 billion people emitted 5.1 tons of carbon, less than the 8.6 tons from each European and the 19.4 tons for each American. Last month, the world's richest countries, which are responsible for almost half the world's emissions, pledged to cut heat-trapping pollution by at least 50 percent by 2050.