HIP has awarded its second-highest rating to General Electric, commending its "ecomagination" program, which finances wind farms and more efficient trains.
About a dozen other privately financed offshore wind projects are in various stages of development.
INDEED, carbon-offsetting companies like the nonprofit Bonneville Environmental Foundation, which sells Green Tags (certificates that finance wind and solar power projects) to replace traditional polluting sources of electricity, have seen a surge in business.
www.carbonneutral.com TerraPass Finances wind farms in Oklahoma, Minnesota, Nebraska and California; farm power projects to help capture and destroy the methane that comes from managing animal waste; and projects that capture gas from landfills.
If that same company financed a wind-farm in China, it was even easier: as an uncapped country, China didn't have to worry so much about tracking and transferring emission reductions.
Now, he is playing down wind because he says it has become almost impossible to finance a wind project, largely because cheap gas has made wind power less competitive.
Instead of financing "giant wind turbines" — a power source he has long criticized — "I'd much rather spend that money on energy research".
"What's fascinating is — to finance these wind projects, it's hundreds of millions of dollars," Mr. Bowman said, "and what is backstopping that entire investment is somebody saying, this wind project is going to produce this amount of energy each year for the next 20 years.
The World Future Council report proposes using the fund to create a vast program of financing solar, wind and other renewable electricity technologies for developing countries, providing guaranteed market prices for renewable power in those countries to spur investment.
Just a few weeks ago, the village of South Brent in Devon financed a large wind turbine almost entirely with local money.
"I see a lot of Chinese philosophy in Jia's film," said Mr. Fan, who added that he hopes to seed his next project, a documentary about China's green initiative focusing on a state-financed wind farm on the Silk Road in the Gobi Desert, with his earnings from "Last Train Home".
