Low carbon economy as an opportunity for developing countries.

As climate change negotiations have generated questions on whether they can reach the political agreements needed on time to avoid a global climate catastrophe, some people rely on technology to make the change. Jeffrey D. Sachs in his column (which can be read here) argues that "directed technological change" can do what international negotiations hadn´t been able to.

This is a biased opinion from the developed countries, some of them (notably USA and China) have an economy based in oil and coal respectively. Changing such a big economy definitely requires big costs and involves an important risk of losing economic hegemony. Whether this risk is bigger by switching or by staying in an old economic paradigm remains to be seen.

However, developing countries are still building up their economies and their challenges are completely different as they usually have to compete with stronger economies. Finding new niches and competitive advantages is critical for developing economies to grow.

Low carbon alternatives could be the opportunity for developing countries to grow in a sector when some of the current economic powers are not so strong. Despite its coal dependence, China seems to have seen this as an opportunity by supporting companies like Suntech and Yingli which have made a huge business out of solar panels

Growth of Yingli Solar Capacity (http://www.yinglisolar.com/en/about/)

The same could be done by other countries since technology for solar panels (as for other low-carbon technologies) is well developed. In many cases all that it´s needed is natural resources, but in a different way, because this time they don´t have to be depleted. Natural resources such as sunshine days or wind are safest bets to base your economy on than oil or forests which can quickly get depleted and put the economy in trouble if not managed properly. Furthermore, at least for solar energy, countries near the equator have an advantage against countries from the north.

A nice conservative estimate of the amount of land required to fulfill world's energy needs using only solar panels done by the Land Art Generator Initiative (which can be read here). It is a bit old estimate, yet technology improvements can probably balance out any underestimations in the "worst case scenario" used for the estimation. An interesting number they give is that if solar farms would be constructed at the same rate that the amount of forest destroyed (170,000 square kilometers per year), it would take only 3 years to have enough solar farms to meet global needs.

If the technology and the natural resources needed are already available, all that is missing is funding, but more importantly, political will. "Creating" a low carbon economy in developing countries would be a good investment for them as they don´t have to bear the cost of "switching" an economy that developed countries have to pay. And although some developed countries are already ahead in this (for example Germany producing over 50% of its energy need from solar panels thanks to nice weather as can be read here), this is still a much fairer competition for developing countries than competing in other second or third sector economy. Actually, this 2012 list of countries with over 60% of renewable electricity shows how developing countries are doing a good job already.

As climate change is gaining relevance due to its evident costs worldwide, the questions regarding a low carbon economy are now "when?". As in any transformation, the ones who adapt to this change faster will have an advantage, so it is very comforting to see developing countries, who have the populations with big needs, surpassing developed countries and setting a strong foundation to a relevant role in the coming decades.