China Platform Webinar

China Could Emerge as the Global Leader in ‘Green Financing’

China may emerge as the leading global market in ‘green financing,’ Dutch and international institutional investors concluded in a poll of participants in a ‘China Platform’ webinar on October 30, after watching top experts from Harvard Business School, Tsinghua University and CUFE in Beijing and the National University of Singapore debate the role of the world’s second superpower in the fight against Climate Change and its future geopolitical relationship with the United States, on the eve of a momentous U.S. presidential election.

The webinar,  ‘Unwrapping the Greatest Geopolitical and Environmental Enigma of our Times,’ was hosted by the Dutch Clingendael Institute for international relations and AXA Investment Managers, the joint founders of The China Platform, a forum for European institutional investors with an interest in the Chinese financial sector.

The event followed President Xi Jinping’s historic virtual address to the United Nations General Assembly in September, where he laid-out his country’s timeline for achieving its  climate goals for the first time. China is targeting peak carbon emissions by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2060.

When asked at the start of the webinar: “Will China be the leader in Green Financing?”, a solid majority of participants (61%), responded “No.” At the end of the speaker presentations and debate, this position was completely reversed with 60% voting “Yes” to the same question.    

The speakers at The China Platform in order of presentations included:

• Prof. Dick Vietor lectures at Harvard Business School with a focus on how countries and regions compete. He also advises the boards of a range of  multinationals, as well as governments, in Asia, the Americas, the Middle East and Europe.
• Prof. Bert Hofman is the director of the East Asian Institute at the National University of Singapore and Professor of Practice at the Lee Kuan Yew School. Before joining NUS, he worked with the World Bank for 27 years, mostly in Asia and particularly in China.
• Dr. Ma Jun, Director of the Center for Finance and Development at Tsinghua University in Beijing, Chairman of the China Green Finance Committee, and a Member of the Monetary Policy Committee of the PBOC.
• Prof. Wang Yao is the Director General of International Institute of Green Finance (IIGF) and the Director of the Research Center for Climate and Energy Finance (RCCEF) at the Central University of Finance and Economics (CUFE) in Beijing.