Highlights and images for 15 June 2022

Zhou Guomei, Deputy Secretary General of the China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development (CCICED), opened the Policy Research Dialogue Plenary.

Noting that the 2022 Annual General Meeting (AGM) marks the beginning of CCICED’s Phase VII, Zhao Yingmin, CCICED Secretary General, encouraged participants in the Plenary to engage in candid exchanges on the basis of the Open Forums and Policy Studies so their ideas can be incorporated into policy recommendations.

Participants then heard reports on the outcomes of each of the Open Forums held online earlier in the AGM.

Reporting on the Open Forum on “Synergizing Economic Growth, Energy Security and Climate Action for a Steady Growth,” Kate Hampton, CEO, Children’s Investment Fund Foundation, highlighted the importance of a just transition, addressing social demand and supply issues, and the need to modify buildings and transportation for energy savings while phasing out coal power.

Reporting on the Open Forum on “Nature-based Solutions and Eco-benefits Assessment,” Bruno Oberle, Director General, International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), identified five key messages arising from their work, including that nature-based solutions have the potential to meet multiple objectives, increase green financing and close financing gaps.

Reporting on the Open Forum on “Ocean Governance - Past and Future,” Dai Minhan, Xiamen University, outlined key recommendations, including to assess needs and tools for more effective, adaptive integrated ocean management, and to incorporate low-carbon and blue-carbon into tradable assets through technology and finance innovation.

Reporting on the Open Forum on “Linking River Basins Management with Nature Resilience,” Jan Bakkes, Senior Strategic Advisor to the Director General, PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, set out the Forum’s recommendations, including to invest in monitoring and local response capacities and to plan for industrial port cities.

Reporting on the Open Forum on “Green Supply Chain - New Opportunity for Global Development,” Chen Ming, Deputy Chief Economist, Foreign Environmental Cooperation Center, China Ministry of Ecology and Environment, highlighted the need for solutions to build green supply chains that drive the sustainable transformation of agricultural and food systems while ensuring food security and carbon neutrality.

Reporting on the Open Forum on “Build a Green Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) Together to Boost Global Green and Low-Carbon Transition,” Zhang Jianyu, Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) China Program, noted that key recommendations include: mobilizing private funding for more effective assistance to highly indebted countries, and enhancing overseas investment in renewable energy.

Reporting on the Open Forum on “‘Digital + Green’ - Twin Transformation for Sustainability,” Antonia Gawel, World Economic Forum, highlighted key recommendations including on the need for China, as leader in both green transition and digitization, to lead the twin transformation and the need for data governance for open access and exchange of data.

Next, participants turned to the draft policy recommendations stemming from this work, introduced by Liu Shijin, CCICED Chinese Chief Advisor. He explained the document includes 24 recommendations and presented them as conveying three key needs: continued emphasis on green and stable growth; green and inclusive development which optimizes consumption and production models and reduces the costs of green industries; and building stronger economic development through improved mechanisms and systems.

Scott Vaughan, CCICED International Chief Advisor, invited participants to continue to submit productive suggestions on the draft policy recommendations as they are finalized over the next seven to ten days. CCICED Special Advisors then made suggestions and comments on the presentations.

Earlier in the day, the CCICED Chief Advisors chaired an online event where CCICED released several policy and scoping studies and a study on gender mainstreaming. These are available on the CCICED website.