The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) predicted on Friday that clean energy technology would become third largest industrial sector worldwide.

A report released on Friday at the UN climate summit in Copenhagen anticipated that the industry would be worth more than US$2.3 trillion in 2020, ranking behind automobiles and electronics. In 2007, clean energy technology had a sales volume of almost US$930 billion.

Kim Carstensen, leader of the WWF's global climate initiative, said these gains had been made despite "a partial Kyoto protocol international framework supporting clean energy development, patchy national support for green energy and huge subsidies to fossil fuel use."

"Imagine what is possible with a successful Copenhagen climate deal and the national mechanisms to deliver its outcomes - clean energy is where the money is going to be and this is where energy security is going to be," Cartensen said in a statement.

The report, titled Clean Economy, Living Planet, ranked clean energy sales globally. In terms of energy sales relative to GDP, Denmark, Brazil and Germany took the lead, while China came in sixth and the United States 19th.

Meanwhile, Germany was leading the absolute sales of clean energy technologies, followed by the United States. China was ranked fourth.

"Clearly, from a national perspective there is much to gain and nothing to lose from investing in clean energy," said Donald Pols, head of the Climate Program at WWF's Netherlands office.

The WWF, based in Gland, Switzerland, was founded in 1961 and is active in more than 100 countries.

(Xinhua News Agency December 11, 2009)