China going green, to invest in Cleantech, US to follow ? MAYOR SAN FrANCISCO

"America had better wake up to this likelihood," said San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom at a green technology summit last month in Shanghai aimed primarily at foreign investors interested in entering China's burgeoning cleantech industry.

Nearly half a dozen such conferences have been held in Shanghai and Beijing in recent weeks.

"If China takes advantage of their opportunity to move as aggressively as we know they can move, we will be left in economic dust," Newsom continued.

"It's no longer America leading the way and China reacting. It's starting to go the other way around."

Progressive environmental policies from the Chinese government combined with an increasingly green-minded public is fueling what some are calling a clean technology renaissance around the country.

The Chinese government is spending millions of dollars on clean energy initiatives ranging from the construction of charging stations for electric vehicles in several major cities to massive wind farms in Inner Mongolia and offshore in the Pacific Ocean.