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Joint Webinar: Green Development Action and Policy: European and Chinese Perspectives
On 26 October 2021, the China-CEE Institute and the Antall Jozsef Knowledge Center successfully held a joint Zoom seminar on Green Development Action and Policy: European and Chinese Perspectives.
The opening ceremony of seminar was moderated by Professor CHEN Xin, Deputy Director of the Institute of European Studies at Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and the Executive President and Managing Director of China-CEE Institute. And then the seminar started with welcome speeches from FENG Zhongping, Director of the Institute of European Studies at CASS and President of the China-CEE Institute, and CSEPREGI Zsolt, Dicrector of Antall Jozsef Knowledge Center. Both speakers expressed and emphasized the importance of launching dialogues to discuss challenges in international relations in general and environmental issues in particular. Especially, through the cooperation in global green development, it’s crucial to foster mutual understanding in other areas.
The seminar is composed of two panels. ZHANG Yongsheng, Director and Senior Researcher, Research Institute for Eco-civilization of Chines Academy of Social Sciences, moderated the first panel. ZHANG Haibin, Professor from School of International Studies at Peking University, gave his presentation on the topic “Understanding the Evolution of China’s Role in Its Participation of Last 30 Years’ International Climate Negotiations”. His presentation inspects the evolution of China’s position in international climate change negotiations, its domestic climate actions and global climate governance. Professor ZHANG thinks that China should promote overall progress in climate governance, climate diplomacy, climate security and climate negotiations and global climate governance in a more powerful way.
JIANG Kejun, Senior Researcher from Energy Research Institute of The National Development and Reform Commission, gave his presentation on the subject of “Energy and Economy Transition Pathways Achieving Paris Agreement Targets”. He inclines to hold that in order to achieve Paris Agreement Targets, the energy system will undergo considerable changes, with renewable energy and nuclear power taking the lead, and the economy will also have big change both on innovation technology and reallocation.
CSEPREGI Zsolt, Dicrector of Antall Jozsef Knowledge Center (AJKC), delivered his presentation on the subject of “Smart City Development and Green Transition in the EU: The Role of The Multiannual Financial Framework 2021-2027 and The Next Generation EU Programmes”. He highlighted on the issue of leadership in climate negotiation and green transition. He discussed that it would be challenging, but also had opportunities in the coming years. VARSANYI Cecilia, Senior researcher at AJKC, delivered her presentation on “The Impact of EU’s Energy and Climate Policy on the V4 Region: Winners or Losers?”. According to Dr. Varsanyi, the main goals related to achieving sustainable development depended on competitive energy prices, security of energy supply and reducing the environmental impact of the energy system.
During the second panel, moderated by GULYAS Zsofia, Junior research fellow at AJKC, ZHANG Yongsheng, Director and Senior Researcher from Research Institute for Eco-civilization of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, talked about “Green Transition in China: Seizing the Historic Opportunity of Global Carbon Neutrality”. He talked about why the global consensus and action for carbon neutrality, though an unprecedented challenge, would bring about historic opportunity for China, and how China could seize it. HUSZAR Andras, Co-Founder and CEO, Green Policy Center, discussed about “Reality Beyond Promises- the Long and Hard Process of Implementing the Carbon Neutrality Target”. According to HUSZAR, the key aspects of implementation of carbon neutrality are (1) political will and support from the society; (2) an ongoing, iterative process of hypothesis, experimentation, learning, and action; (3) proper institutions must be in place proper competences; (4) science and policy must work close together.
ZHANG Jianyu, Executive Director and Senior Research Fellow, BRI Green Development Institute, gave his presentation on “China ETS Updates and Next Steps”,which showed his latest rethinking about China’s National Emissions Trading Scheme. LI Kexin, CEO and President of Bank of China Limited Hungarian Branch, discussed about “Overview of Green Finance Development in China”. According to Mr. LI, as of end of 2020, outstanding green lending in China exceeded 1.8 trillion USD, ranking the first globally. Meanwhile, Bank of China provides strong support for green finance in the Central and Eastern Europe region.
During the two Q&A Sessions, speakers answered several questions from the participants. During the seminar, all the speakers shared their ideas, opinions and observations. While it’s undeniable that there are challenges and difficulties that the EU and China have to deal with, it is widely believed that mutual communications and dialogues are of great necessity and importance. Considering the current tensions and uncertainties in international arena, mutual understanding comes to the fore. To conclude, AJKC Director CSEPREGI Zsolt, gave closing remarks on the seminar.
