Events
Public Policy Forum on Economic Opportunities of Climate Change
1 Nov 2018
14:30–17:00
Cho Yiu Conference Hall, CUHK
Mr Kam-Sing WongSecretary for the Environment, HKSAR GovernmentMr Mark CliffordExecutive Director, Asia Business CouncilDr Jeanne NgChairman, Hong Kong Institute of Qualified Environmental ProfessionalsProf. Ambuj SagarHead, School of Public Policy, Indian Institute of Technology DelhiMrs Alexandra TracyPresident, Hoi Ping VenturesProf. Yuan XuAssociate Professor, Department of Geography and Resource Management, CUHK
Mr Leong
Tel: 3943-3471
E-mail: policyresearch@cuhk.edu.hk
Climate mitigation and adaptation are often understood to be reluctant responses to climate change, as a society is obliged to redirect resources that could have been used for other purposes. Because climate change is a genuinely global environmental problem, countries are often passive about using domestic resources for mitigation. The international climate negotiations that have been conducted in the past two-and-a-half decades have been bumpy and have encountered many setbacks. The most recent dramatic reversal occurred in 2017 when President Trump pulled the United States out of the Paris Agreement.
However, economic opportunities could also emerge in our response to climate change. New industries, such as wind turbines and solar PV, have grown to provide millions of jobs worldwide. Hong Kong is positioned to benefit from the global climate efforts. These new technologies demand research, as well as financial and legal services, to accelerate innovations. Hong Kong could strategically utilize climate change to strengthen its current economic pillars and nurture its innovation and technology value chains.
The 2018 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences was awarded to Prof. Nordhaus for his work on climate economics, and to Prof. Romer for his endogenous growth theory, which stresses the importance of knowledge and innovation. In her 2018 Policy Address, Chief Executive Carrie Lam also emphasized innovation and technology, and made more funding available for these areas. The forum, which focuses on these themes, is therefore timely.
Under the Fourth National Assessment Report on Climate Change, a dedicated report for Hong Kong and Macau has just been commissioned. The reports will lay an important foundation for formulating climate policies in the coming years, while this forum could offer ideas – especially in the initial stage – to shape the contents of such policies.
Towards achieving the above objective, the forum will invite outstanding scholars from both overseas and Hong Kong to share their insights on such economic opportunities and possible ways of capitalizing on them. Since all countries and governments around the world are facing significant challenges in this policy area, this theme will make the experiences and cases in the forum highly relevant and useful to a large number of participants in policymaking and research.
