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PoliticaleEconomic Governance of Renewable Chapter j 4 67

CHINA LEAPFROGS AHEAD
China, however, has developed its own form of non-Western government and
economics (Clark, 2012). Clark and Li made this point for over a decade,
calling China’s government “social capitalism” (Clark and Li, 2004, 2010,
2013), which means that governments must be responsible for social issues
including the environment and renewable energy, as well as health and
retirement issues for its people. Western economics looks at what is best for
the corporation, shareholders, and employees first and foremost. This eco-
nomic ideology lacks both ethics and honest use of economics, calling into
question the fact that economics is not a science but simply a way to use
numbers to justify political positions and decisions. In Agile Energy Systems
(Clark and Bradshaw, 2004) the point was made with a review of what
happened in the California energy crisis from 2000 to 2003 and how com-
panies manipulated “markets” to their own economic advantages while
allowing brownout and blackouts throughout the state.
The Chinese governments have led in the role of government providing
direction with 11Five-Year Plans and funding to support these plans.
Renewable energy is a key component of the 12th and then the 13th Five-Year
Plans that started in March 2011. Each plan provides clear and formulated
policies, and their intended budgets, to address environmental issues and their
solutions. Denmark (and other Nordic nations, including Germany) also has
national plans including renewable energy. Their current one (2012) calls for
Denmark to be 100% energy independent through renewable energy by 2025.
Denmark is already 45% there today.
Meanwhile, the United States has no such plans, especially in energydand
renewable energy in particular. Instead, the United States leaves the decisions
on energy to “market forces,” which are focused primarily on their past
business models that are usually rooted in fossil fuels from the Second In-
dustrial Revolution (2IR). It is not surprising that the United States remains
behind in the Green Industrial Revolution (GIR). Clark and Cooke (2011)
document the problem with the United Stateswhen compared with the rest of
the developed and developing world. Their new book on the GIR will be
published initially in Chinese as a wake-up call to the West, and particularly
the United States.

CHINA HAS “LEAPFROGGED” INTO THE GREEN
INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION
To avoid the mistakes of the Western developed nations, China has moved
ahead in a variety of infrastructure areas (Clark and Isherwood, 2007, 2010).
Also, the United States must look comprehensively into the corporate and
political reactions to the 2011 Japanese tsunami and ensuing nuclear power
plant explosions, as well as the 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico off