5pm to 7pm
Tuesday 8th July, Linklaters
One Silk Street,
London EC1
Directions [pdf]
Event partner
Media sponsors
- China now: Growth, Climate Realities, Chinese Policy on climate change
- How China informs and contributes to the global negotiating process
- Climate change business opportunities and risks in China
- Securing environmentally sustainable supply lines from China
Agenda
Chair: Isabel Hilton, Editor - China Dialogue
1700 Geo-Political Overview: Where climate change sits with other national
goals
Isabel Hilton, Editor - China
Dialogue
1710 Chinese Policy & Climate Change
Dr Tao Wang - Research Fellow SPRU
and Tyndall Centre
1720 Climate Realities:
How climate change is already affecting China
Elizabeth Economy, CV
Starr Senior Fellow and Director, Asia Studies at Council on Foreign
Relations (USA)
1730 Doing business with China
Thomas Ng, Partner, Beijing, Linklaters
1740 China, carbon trading and the global negotiating
process
Nick Mabey, Chief Executive, E3G
1750 Climate change opportunities in China
Roger Wood,
Dongtan Project Manager, Director, Arup
1800 Q&A
Event Summary
China's growth continues at over 9% a year. Growth that the Chinese government is keen to maintain. There are many concerns over the foundations of this growth and its environmental consequences. Production is understood to be very wasteful and the growth has contributed to the rapid degradation of China's environmental well being. The Chinese government recognises its environmental problems and has many measures in place, but at a local level it is very difficult to implement change. In the provinces it is still growth at all costs.
Climate change is already having a huge affect on China - one being the ecological migrants forced to move on from China's western provinces. They may number over 150 million in the next few years. And the link between this mass exodus and a changing climate has been made explicit by Pan Yue, deputy director of China's Ministry for Environmental Protection. The Chinese administration is very concerned and there is an understanding with the party's senior ranks that action is needed. However the Ministry has a hard battle reconciling these concerns with China's growth strategies and in enforcing policies locally where many do not understand the problem.
In the same reckoning it must be remembered that Chinese CO2 emissions are, per capita, roughly a fifth of UK and a tenth of USA emissions and its contribution to pre-existing greehouse gas stocks is negligible. China is looking for help on this issue - help that it can afford and that will accelerate its transition to a low carbon economy.
China is also an important global manufacturer and the dialogue between China and its clients on sustainable production and manufacturing is really beginning to usher in new ways of doing things.
This short briefing will give further body and context to these themes and pinpoint the various roles for business in helping China develop speedily and move to more climate friendly business models, the opportunities and the pitfalls. It will also give some feel for what China's policies mean for the development of global initiatives to combat climate change.
Background on our conferences
As a little bit of background, here are some previous speakers who have spoken at Linklaters' climate change series: Lord Stern, Professor John Shepherd, Tyndall Centre; Dr Steve Howard, Climate Group; Lord Browne of Maddingley; The Rt. Hon. Hilary Benn MP; Peter Ainsworth MP; Ben Verwaayen, ex-CEO of BT; Professor Bob Watson, DEFRA; Green Business Events has been set up to help businesses understand the implications of climate change. Our home page provides a lot more information.
