Interview: Emerging countries can have better future in green growth: IEA chief economist

by Zhang Xin, Li Ming

Emerging countries can have better future in terms of green growth compared with developed countries, Fatih Birol, the chief economist of Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA), said Wednesday in an exclusive interview with Xinhua.

"Emerging countries have a big potential, because they are now establishing the infrastructure," Birol said at the sidelines of the 2010 OECD Forum and Ministerial Meeting, which focus on innovation and green growth.

In Mr. Birol's view, developing countries should take the opportunities to think about how they construct the mobility system and what power plant will be built, in a bid to avoid the faults most OECD countries made.

Emerging economies "are in face of making these big decisions and if they make right decisions, then they can have a better future than OECD countries," he said.

As OECD countries are seeking for "a more sustainable energy future" by "redefining many priorities according to the principle of the sustainable development", emerging countries, including China, have started to grow in sustainable way, which can be much more promising, because "change the established system is much more difficult from building a system from the beginning with the right ideas," Birol explained.


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