Beijing is blossomed with Christmas-related paraphernalia in stores and along streets, lightening up the city a bit.And we had the year's first snowfall, a light dusting. But the coal-burning heaters which keep many Beijingers warm still manage to shroud the place in haze when there's no wind to dissipate the pollution. Those noxious, old-fashioned coal-bricks are being replaced by natural gas as a source of fuel, but not quickly enough to help dispel pollution worries during the 2008 Summer Games.

But, hey, in the name of holiday cheer, how about taking seriously the government's promises to create a "Green Olympics" -- or at least give it a good try, thus improving the city's environment in the process?

At least that's how Nicholas Parker, Chairman and Co-Founder of the Cleantech Group, would have it. Last week Beijing-based Cleantech held a forum in Beijing to encourage networking among "investors, innovators and influencers" in the world of environmentally-friendly technologies. They're certainly focused on the bright side of the future. Clean technologies are attracting 10 percent of total venture capital (VC) in China, third only to information technology and communications.

If the current trajectory holds true, cleantech's share of VC funds will only grow — to as much as 40 percent within the next investment cycle, reportedly. Within the first three quarters of 2007, eastern China landed a spot among the world's top-10 regions in terms of cleantech investment. It is the only region to do so in the developing world—and next to Western Europe, the only one outside the U.S.

China's expected to overtake the U.S. as the leading global emitter of greenhouse gases by the time the Olympics take place -- a decade sooner than expected. And many 2007 goals for cleaning up pollution and promoting sustainable development  have not been met.

Still, worries about a pollution-shrouded Olympics have penetrated official consciousness, and we'll no doubt see an increasingly ambitious raft of clean-up of measures -- such as reducing industrial production in neighboring areas -- in advance of the Games. The country's 11^th Five-Year-Plan outlines comprehensive measures which gear the country toward sustainable development, alternative energy (as opposed to fossil fuels) and cleaner technologies. The impact of those policies won't be felt before the Olympics take place. But as part of its legacy, the Games may leave a greener city than Beijing might otherwise have turned out to be.That's not a bad gift, Christmas or otherwise.