Matthias Machnig, a state secretary at the German Environment Ministry, said the world is "at the beginning of the third industrial revolution" that will have a positive influence on climate change, but also on the global economy.

Speaking in Abu Dhabi, Machnig referred to a study commissioned by the German government on the current global green-tech market, which Roland Berger Strategy Consultants said was worth more than $1.3 trillion in 2005. The consultancy expects this sector's value to more than double to some $3 trillion until 2020.

"This will become one of the biggest markets in the world, bigger than the automotive sector," Machnig said. "That shows the potential of the sector and possibilities for investment in the coming years."

A quickly growing global green market could mitigate the effects of the recession that is pulling many other industries to their knees.

"I am convinced that the next economic growth will come from innovation," said Susan Hockfield, the president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and one of the United States' leading brains, "and the most powerful promise for innovation lies in the renewable energy sector."

All over the world, governments are increasingly aware of the chances the green sector is offering.

In the United States, President Barack Obama has pledged to invest $150 billion in the American renewable energy sector over the next decade. Obama hopes to create millions of jobs and revive the ailing U.S. economy in the process.

In Europe, the renewable energy sector is already strong, thanks to a set of effective feed-in tariffs that have been ensuring companies' investment security.

Thanks to a beneficial regulatory environment, Germany, for example, is leading the world in the solar photovoltaic market and is also a strong wind energy player.

Governments all over Europe nevertheless are stepping up incentives to go greener, including increased support for energy efficiency technologies.

At the end of this year, a global climate deal is expected to hand further incentives to green investments.

Of course, the global financial crisis has taken a toll on the renewable energy sector as well. Mainly in Western Europe and the United States, renewable projects have been delayed or scrapped altogether. In addition, many green stocks have lost market value.

That doesn't alter the long-term prospects of the sector, said Vivienne Cox, the chief executive officer of BP Alternative Energy.

As long as the incentives are provided, "money will flow" into renewables and "green stocks will recover," benefiting the overall economic situation, she said Tuesday at the World Future Energy Forum.

And even as growth in the West may be slowing down, other regions are stepping in to save the green sector's momentum.

A downright growth explosion is originating in a region that seems unlikely to cultivate a green revolution. In the oil-rich Gulf states, where 24-hour air conditioning, massive building projects and a weakness for American SUVs eat away frightening amounts of energy, governments increasingly are realizing the potential of renewables.

The year-round sunshine in this arid region makes the Gulf a perfect place for clean technologies such as solar photovoltaics, or concentrated solar power.

Using tens of millions of its petrodollars, Saudi Arabia recently kept alive or infused with new momentum green research projects all over the world, handing cash also to U.S. scientists at Stanford University and the University of California-Berkeley.

Late last year Qatar signed an agreement with Britain to inject some $220 million into a British green technology fund, dwarfing domestic investments.

But the most ambitious of all Gulf states is Abu Dhabi, one of seven emirates that make up the United Arab Emirates, and its richest.

On Monday the Abu Dhabi leadership pledged to boost the share of renewables to 7 percent of the nation's total power generation by 2020. This figure may not sound too ambitious, but it truly is, given the fact that the emirate is jump-starting a sector practically from scratch.

It is all the more astounding because Abu Dhabi is a major OPEC giant. It owns some 90 percent of the UAE's proven oil reserves, which rank as the world's fifth largest at nearly 100 billion barrels. The UAE also sits on the world's fourth-largest natural gas reserves.

Yet Abu Dhabi seems to have realized that its oil won't last forever, and that climate change, which could render large parts of the Gulf uninhabitable, calls for reducing the UAE's carbon footprint. While China and the United States emit far more carbon dioxide, the UAE tops the world when it comes to per-capita emissions.

That's why the crown prince of Abu Dhabi in early 2008 established a $15 billion investment fund that distributes cash to renewable energy companies and green research institutes all over the world. The focus lies on solar power generation, but investments also go into research into carbon capture and sequestration, nuclear energy and sustainable building design. Of course, the fund is also aimed at making money and securing the emirate's position as a global energy powerhouse -- be it for fossil fuels or renewables.

Sultan Ahmed al-Jaber, the head of the Masdar Initiative, a government-funded company currently building a carbon-neutral renewable energy city in Abu Dhabi's desert, said he expected the local green market in Abu Dhabi to grow to a value of up to $8 billion by 2020.

Masdar also owns a daughter company that soon will start producing solar cells in eastern Germany, creating up to 600 jobs in the process. Thus the emirate's investments are even helping to revive the ailing job market in Europe.

And by the time solar power reaches grid parity, which is expected to happen within the next five to 10 years, the real cash will start flowing. The Gulf states then could simply power their air conditioners with energy from the sun, instead of having to burn their precious oil and gas. After all, they can sell that to the West for a lot of money.

-- (e-mail: [email protected])

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