Global trends in clean energy investment
New investment in clean energy worldwide fell 18% last year to $287.5bn, despite a record year for offshore wind financings, according to the latest authoritative figures from research company Bloomberg New Energy Finance. The 2016 setback in global investment, signaled in advance by weak quarterly figures during the course of last year, partly reflected further sharp falls in equipment prices, particularly in solar photovoltaics. However, there was also a marked cooling in two key markets, China and Japan. Clean energy investment in China in 2016 was $87.8bn, down 26% on the all-time high of $119.1bn reached in 2015, while the equivalent figure for Japan was $22.8bn, down 43%.