 Hello everyone, and welcome to today's event China ecological civilization and green economy vision for 2021 and beyond. My name is Julietse on store on the external events officer for the International Institute for environment and development. And today's event is co-hosted by IED and green economy coalition. And it's part of the IED debates series. If you haven't joined an IED debates event, the series aims to bring together an international community to discuss key and current sustainable development issues. So with that, I'm really pleased to hand over to Oliver Greenfield, who's the convener of the green economy coalition and our moderator for today's session. Oliver over to you. Hello. Thank you very much, Juliet. Hello everybody very well and welcome from the green economy coalition and IED. Thank you for hosting us. We have a super panel and we have perhaps one of the most important to the same development questions in the world. China. China matters whether or not it's your interest in geopolitics, human rights, climate and biodiversity or more broadly that sense of the shift to green and fair economies. China matters. We'll remember in 2015, when we were struggling with climate negotiations, China, the US, supported by the EU got that deal across the across the line. We know that they had glimpsed that it was no longer a battle between climate action and economic development. You could have both you could. They had seen the potential of green economy and we know that in that transition much of the early brave money on green economy thinking was Chinese. And not an economic transition starts perhaps in the US and EU as we have traditionally seen that with China money. So, we know that this year, 2021, there is a climate summit, there is a biodiversity summit, a moment when we take the global pulse of that green economic transition. And we know that what's China going to do, where is China going to go. What about us, how does it connect to us how does it connect to the European Union. China also matters to the green economy coalition for another reason. One of the reasons that the green economy coalition exists is because we think that the wisdom of science should inform economic governance. Rather, we should overcome what Mark Carney described as the tragedy of horizons where short term is and dominates our economic governance and thinking. And China has five year plans, China raises his eyes above a short term is and for the for those of us like me who don't know a lot about China one assumes that they are being informed by science. They're being informed by a longer term perspective they're starting to get a sense of the Chinese miracle isn't just a miracle it's just common sense look at look ahead. Look what's coming understand the science understand the trends, start to put some market correction in place line up the finance do some sexual thinking support and unleash entrepreneurship and get a good outcome. So all the things that we start to see and we see the amount of money going into the economy, third of all, renewable jobs Chinese, very difficult for the GC to work out how much Chinese money is in play but we know trillions and it was certainly the early years of the economy so a lot of positive things and then we look at things like the Belt and Road Initiative which extraordinary levels of carbon embedded in all of that I don't know whether it should be called. I don't know why it's called the Belt Road Initiative that somebody will tell me about China experts but it feels more likely great carbon road. We still have coal powered power stations we extraordinary and then along comes last year's China commitment to neutrality and carbon heat by 2030 and very confused generally the GC very confused do we challenge do we support do we engage what we do. So we reached out to Lila, Lila but she from ID China expert, and she said calm down everyone seek first to understand China, seek first understand where China is coming from. And on that part of the story I hand over to Lila, who has taken us on the journey of understanding and produce a fabulous report which I commend to you today. China's ecological civilization pathway to green economy question mark Lila. Thank you. Thank you Oliver, and thank you everyone for joining it's a pleasure to be here and to discuss this paper and this these reflections. As Oliver has shared the starting point for this work was really a desire to understand the evolution of equal civilization and the concept, and what it could tell us about China's approach to transitioning towards a greener economy. This feels particularly important in this moment this environmental super year of 2021. You know when the global community is coming together to make some really important decisions on biodiversity and climate for the next decade and beyond. So, in discussions with Oliver and others in the green economy coalition. It became clear that understanding this was really a critical starting point for the global community to be able to engage more effectively. And in this discussion and in the paper there were very much aimed at an international green economy audience. So those of you in the audience who are China scholars may find a lot of what I say, somewhat familiar, but perhaps the discussion will help you as it has helped me to situate the China context within this broader set of concerns. This is a global push for a green economy and the discussions that are happening at the international level. So there's a lot of detail in the paper on the history, the political purposes, and recent trajectory full of ecological civilization. And unfortunately I don't have time to go into this in detail here I have 10 minutes. But just so that we're on the same page. And so the question, what is equal as ecological civilization. So broadly it's a concept that emerged in China in the 1980s. But that since 2016, which is really my focus in this paper has been at the center of the Chinese government's new economic strategy, which focuses on inclusive development and ecological upgrading for China's dream of national rejuvenation. And this ecological ecological civilization is many things. It's a top level strategic socio economic goal of the Chinese government. It's a vision of sustainable development with specifically Chinese characteristics. It's a reappraisal of political governance and party institutions within China. And it's an appeal to traditional Chinese philosophical values through environmental action. And as Oliver noted, it's according to some external observers also China's answer to the green economy concept. And I think in this it's there's a natural 1010 temptation tendency to put ecological civilization side by side with green new deals green economy green growth narratives. It's important to keep in mind that that ecological civilization is is distinct from these kinds of policy packages. It's, it's much closer to a higher level messaging concept of green growth and green economy than it is a green deal package of specific policies. President Xi and the Communist Party of China ecological civilization brings the centralization of authority, good governance and the rule of law into rhetorical alignment. And that is alignment with the popular vision of protecting nature as well as promoting familiar concepts that do align with green economy priorities of innovation, green technology and digitalization. And as a concept, it's framed in terms of ecological rejuvenation. And as such it has established new priorities for the modernization of China and the Chinese economy, and really has been the driving force for sweeping reforms to the underlying structures of Chinese economic governance. That was an important point that emerged through discussion with the green economy coalition team of realizing that it's really important to make the distinction of the Chinese concept of modernization, which, unlike in many other localities is not synonymous with Westernization. Instead, Chinese modernization is very much about a destined and natural return, in a sense to its rightful past eminence through rapid socio cultural change. And this process of modernization has been especially dominant since the 1980s, but it's also been an essential part of Chinese nationhood, as well as Chinese personal identity stretching back, at least for the past 200 years since the century of humiliation by foreign powers in the 19th century. This guiding vision of ecological ecological civilization then is not merely a technical approach but a structural, social and cultural reshaping of Chinese governance. And as such it can be seen as tied closely with Xi's wider vision of modernization that it trickles through every layer of society. Therefore, if we want to understand the role of ecological civilization in Chinese reform we need to understand that in shaping China's returned to an ascendant middle role in world affairs. She requires from the concepts, a combination of old values of civilization, nature, along with an impetus for modern digital infrastructure and technocratic policy, all within the rubric of a stronger and more centralized party governance. So with that basic understanding. And again there's more detail in the paper but with that broad overview of the complexity of what ecological civilization is. We then might ask, so what, what does this Chinese governance reform mean for a global transition to a green economy. It's an open question as to whether ecological civilization could be or would be internationalized as a model through, for example, the Belt and Road Initiative, which maybe in the later exchange Oliver we can get into some of the questions you raised related to that. And, but also other international processes or through China's policy policy leadership, there's there's been a lot of speculation as to whether China was wanting to internationalize this concept whether it was China's branding of green economy. The surprising finding that emerged from this paper was some evidence of a de emphasis on ecological civilization in 2020. The concept was less central than before and policy documents analyzed, and it was not leaned on in the announcements that came out about urban peaking at zero targets in last fall. And, although the upcoming CBD cop is running under the theme of ecological civilization input into preparations for that meeting and also the climate cops cop has focused much more on a broader sustainable development discourse which is what we saw more of in the last couple of as well as technical approaches like ecological redlining. So we don't know if ecological civilization framing has peaked recent discourse analysis that came out last week by cynicism shows that propaganda on many fronts, important to the Communist Party really declined last year in the context of the COVID prices. So it could also just be that it got sort of sucked up in discussions and policy focus on how to move forward within that context, but it could also reflect general opaqueness in Chinese government preparations for the economic policies in general. And I would suggest that the 14th five year plan which is due to come out in the coming weeks is a space space to watch for either the use of or the absence of ecological civilization concepts. But what's clear in terms of whether China is serious about a green economy domestically and globally is that the governance reform driven by ecological civilization has tangibly strengthened China's environment and economic reform. And the policy commitments have continued to flow even if ecological civilization messaging has waned. We've observed unilateral action, even before the US election, and there's some optimism about coming from the early drafting of the upcoming 14th five year plan. In closing my reflection is that eco civilization this year is much more the central Communist Party is domestic communication tool for the greening agenda within China, then it is a competing international frame being promoted around the world. Or even an implementation approach like ecological redlining potentially will be that could be scaled up and duplicated around China, I mean outside of China. Our panel will have more to add to this perspective, as we turn to them now to hear their main takeaways from the paper as well as reflections on what we can expect from ecological civilization and green economy agendas in this super year as well as in the upcoming 14th five year plan. Back over to you Oliver. Thank you very much and I strongly commend this report to you. It's, it's spurred in me a very great interest in China have now become an amateur historian on Chinese history so fascinating China itself and to that spring in San Diego. It's a great sense of China dialogue and also working chance in the house, some long term expo on China, really a sense of what you picked up from life by this paper what resonates with you. When we see this going. Thank you. And thanks, Lila. It's a really great paper I would commend it to people to better understand the ecological civilization concept and why it matters. I guess it's a it's a helpful paper because as I think Oliver sort of introduced as well it helps us to ask the right questions. And, you know, we, we don't really know where we're going unless we start asking the right questions that means not just asking questions about what you know what are Chinese, China's policies on on greening, why questions you know what are the drivers, what's underlying this, you know what's what's the vision here and what's the potential sort of future that it's mapping out. And the things I took away. You know I think Lila has touched on some of them, you know, the probably the first one to, you know to slightly reiterate is that ecological civilization, you know it's not a policy program. It's really a green economy or a green deal type program. It's a political vision and it's one broadly aimed at a domestic audience, and it's one that therefore should be understood in terms of, you know hard political themes stability legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party security, including ecological security. There are some key features which you wouldn't necessarily identify, unless you sort of use that as the starting point. So a focus on the, the concept of red lines, the idea of the ecological red lines I think it's central. So that's, you know, partly an issue about spatial planning, and that links to the Convention on biological diversity, which you know we can come back to but the, you know, China of course is hosting the CBD COP 15 later this year. Thank you. And, you know, one of the key parts of one of the key sort of things about that CBD COP 15 is that it has ecological civilization in the title and you know that means something in terms of China's aspiration to what sometimes called discourse power. And that is the so called right to speak on the world stage to have its own signature leadership concepts recognized by the international community, and having ecological civilization in the title of a UN conference is no small thing for for Xi Jinping and for the Communist Party, and links to some of the sort of drivers that Lila mentions like this this aspiration towards national rejuvenation. So I think there's an important point in there that ecology is kind of no longer seen as part of a kind of Western imperialist agenda agenda to dictate the terms of China's development that is actually seen as part of China sort of realizing its own national rejuvenation on the, on the world stage. And I think there's a link of course to the good governance agenda but also specifically the anti corruption agenda, and a sort of linkage made, you know, in my study of the eco civilization agenda what one of the things I sort of noticed and thought there was a real turning point. And I've been interested in the term since around 2007 and and from I guess 2007 to 2015 or so. It was a very broad discursive kind of term that was used for quite a lot of critical voices. I think it's a great example to raise concerns about the sort of gap between rural and urban in China, for example, or to, or to make a sort of critique of Western forms of capitalism. Then around 2015, I think it sort of shifts when it becomes very much not only a kind of core state policy linked to quite a top down policy agenda but very specifically to specific sets of governance reforms. And then once being around trying to remove structural misalignments around the way that policy is made, specifically between central and local. So for a long time there was a big concern that particularly GDP, sort of a focus on GDP is the key impact of political evaluation was meaning that that local officials were kind of much keener to pursue growth at all cost policies to the detriment of kind of central edicts on environmental protection, particularly energy intensity goals, carbon intensity goals and so on the kinds of things that come out in the five year plans. And the eco civilization agenda around sort of 2015 on gets linked to this effort to try and change those key performance indicators. So I think that's one of the major points. Otherwise, I guess that the other key point that I took away from Lila's paper is that the way we're moving in different sort of phases from what what she calls a startup phase through the 13 five year plan that we're just ending now where you see ecological as part of the plan for the first time kind of underpinning some of that governance reform agenda to a kind of consolidation and now I would say a linkage to the the overarching 2060 carbon neutrality goal. And you know we'll probably come back to that in the discussion and sort of subsequent questions and so on but the 2060 carbon neutrality goal. It is really big I think it's a really significant goal it changes the way that we think about China's future carbon emissions trajectory. I think it's real I think it, I think it was really significant because it was a natural goal that came out of Xi Jinping's you know pronouncements on the world stage it's linked to that kind of big discourse power kind of goal as a result. It is really significant in terms of the way that it's changing policymaking at the Ministry of ecological environment level and so on. And I think it's a huge market signal to to suggest that you know by mid century China's energy production has to be entirely electrified and all of that electricity needs to come from non fossil sources is is it, you know, requires an enormous sort of green economic shift and and I think we're going to see that playing out sort of an aligning with the eco civilization agenda. So there's lots there and lots more I could have said but we can keep the conversation going. Thank you Sam. Thank you very much indeed so let's come to Andy Norton the director of ID and he is the only bit like me the two people on this panel that aren't China experts but experts on the sustainable development. What are your takeaways from Lila's labor. Thanks very much Oliver and huge thanks to Lila in particular for the paper which I think was incredibly clear and helpful, and also to Sam for those really interesting kind of introductory remarks. My takeaways. I think the first one is what the paper ends with, which might seem somewhat basic but just emphasizing that for external actors, trying to impose an external framing and set of concepts in working with China on the green transformation agenda, doing that in a crude way as a roots of failure and that it's critical to understand if you're interested in the geopolitics of green transformation you need some sense of what the internal drivers of these changes are within China. And the papers really fascinating on that very much recommend it to people to look at if you haven't already. And the link to governance in ecological civilization which I guess came across as a really strong point for me. And that this is a high level, a very high level political concept with links to these broader priorities around stability legitimacy and security. So important to be aware that that nests within a broad obviously a culture of governance that broadly, you know has top very strong top down and authoritarian elements. I love the part of the paper which talked about the kind of internal external interface and ecological civilization. So the Chinese government has used this as a way of legitimizing to a domestic audience, a strong engagement in leading global environmental agendas by putting Chinese cultural values at the heart of the discourse. And again that's that was a really useful point for me. And what we'll come back to in the discussion is BRI button road initiative, which seems to be a weak spot in terms of, as far as I can tell from the paper and other sources. There is as yet no comprehensive plan for greening BRI investments, and I'd be really interested in others on the panel before the stuff in more detail, and whether they think that is an area where we can hope to see change in the coming year. Final, well, a couple of thoughts. I think, as Lila mentioned, in the wake of the pandemic, the sort of primacy of the eco civilization framing seems to be fading a little. So this is coming through now perhaps unsurprisingly is on framing of tech innovation, including green technology and indigenous innovation and these kind of classic post pandemic concerns of securing supply chains shortening key supply chains and so on. So that also it was really interesting that there was a sense that it's possibly fading a little but again, too early to tell if this is a long term shift as I understand it. I just a final comment which I think is a detail in the paper, rather than the main thing but seemed significant to me was this thing that kind of broad popular discontent with local environmental standards, air pollution environmental degradation in cities in particular that this emerged as a material threat to the much priced kind of stability of the system. And that seemed important to me because it indicates that for all the top down dynamics that we've seen strengthening in recent years policy remains sensitive to bottom up popular pressure at least from some impacts, maybe not from all. But huge thanks really to Lila and to GC and Chris, and you all of us for overseeing this work. I really enjoyed the paper. Thank you. Thank you very much Andy so we've, we've got a strong rapport giving us a sense of understanding of eco civilization where it's coming from its historic and internal contacts external contacts. Welcome now to Unan Chen from ODI, you know, your particular expertise development and public finance China. Really, you know that in the covered recovery some of a lot of the debt is now owned by China we know lots of things about green recovery but this is a big year 2021 the biodiversity in Kunming everybody's eyes on that eco civilization is already inscribed. We also know that we've got a climate meeting. A few years on from Paris, have we had enough progress where's China, the commitments for carbon neutrality extraordinary cord is all well maybe not you record the rest of us unexpected so this is a big year but what does this all mean as far as eco civilization green economy in China, from your perspective. Thanks so much for having me to this event and thank you Lila. This is a really really enjoyed reading the paper and I also took a lot away from it. Just speaking on the sort of international frontiers of what this all means. I think, you know, something that that other commenters and picked up from the paper already this. There's really a desire for legitimacy. And that's a constant theme that runs throughout, you know, this this eco civilization narrative domestically but also what China is doing on the international front. I've seen in the last decade, increasingly assertive global actor with very strong aspirations to to participate in global governance. In the wake of the COVID pandemic vaccine diplomacy and addressing the impacts of the pandemic has has been another frontier of this but also the climate agenda and participating meaningfully in in dealing with climate change. This is a very prominent platform for China now to to really assert itself on the world stage as a as a provider of global public goods and as a contributor to to global governance. And something to note also in the policy discourse is this idea of a shared community of common destiny, which is very very recurrent right now. And enforces this idea of you know China as as as a as a contributor to to to these this this global system in providing these these global public goods. You know, particularly in the in the last four years under the Trump administration is it's really taken advantage of that of that vacuum in leadership to push this agenda and to push itself as a responsible global public power. I think with the with the return of Democratic leadership and the ascension of Biden. So, this is a positive sign. I don't think we'll see a return to the sort of Obama year still a lot of remaining distance. So, so in the wake of COVID I think we're seeing a deceleration now in in the kind of overseas engagement and development finance that's characterized the last two decades and this investment in mega projects in these kind of turnkey engineering contracts. And there's really a restructure within China's development financing system to to pay more attention to risk in these overseas projects and and I think environmental and climate risk is also going to play a bigger part in that ODI has been paying attention to and we're about to release a new economic pulse that looks at the China's economic recovery and implications abroad. What we're seeing is also that renewable energy is going to play a much bigger part in China's overseas engagement. It's been increasing as a share of projects so. The financing and construction in a lot of this these other kinds of contracts are slowed down renewable energy has not a sector. And I think in future this is an area that China is very very keen to develop and expand both domestically and expanding the consumption and use of renewable energy technology to fuel its domestic energy demands but also an area in which it wants to build a quantitative edge overseas and it's. We've we've seen in a recent forum between China and Central Eastern Central and Eastern European countries that it wants to build more cooperation between companies in renewable energy. And it wants to expand its renewable energy investments in Eastern Europe as well. There's still, you know, a great concern and and as as you've noted, the BRI is something that hasn't really featured prominently in in these carbon neutrality pledges there's still a kind of open question as to what the implications will be for for developing countries and for Belt and Road partners. I think some an interesting development to notice that China is interested in working much more multilaterally on the BRI that. This is the creation last year of the Multilateral Centre, Multilateral Cooperation Centre for Development Finance or the MCDF that was created as a platform to work with multilateral development banks, including the IDB, the AIB, the AIIB. And there is a platform for the influence of these multilateral actors who have very expertise and a long established record of good environmental governance and safeguards to potentially influence how the BRI develops in the future. And there's more to say on this but I'll stop there for now. Thank you very much indeed. Okay, so we have a very large number of participants today I just encourage you to start putting your questions in there or voting which question you like from other people because I've given everyone one go but I will have a couple of follow up questions from our expert panel as I then look to bring all of your questions in so please be acting or either voting or insight so let's give one sort of final round of questions to Sam and we'll bring Lila back in and also Andy is this idea of what gives you hope, reason for hope, the US, EU, China, is there an axis of real economic power coming through on the screen economic transition. Another point that Lila, I'm very clear that this is, this is more than a policy suite it is a rejuvenation a sense of modernization and external narrative. In the West I've got saying you've got to walk the talk and very difficult to put forward a concept at a macro level and then still create a lot of trouble with Belt and Road carbon so you know the idea of the still a distance for me certainly about a narrative and an action. And we also do have this big year for nature. We know that the Cuming cop, what are we going to get from that as well so there's some real sort of macro questions for us about maybe Andy I'll come to you on EU, US, China. Lila I might come to you about the question about the distance between concepts and external concepts of the reality. And Sam really that sort of reasons for hope for this year what do you think we were going to get maybe from this 14th year finance 14 sorry the 14th five year plan. All of you might address that we should be looking out for because this report was really written to warm us up to give us more insight in how to evaluate the five year plan to all of you can pick up that question. So let's just do a quick round final round before we open it up. Lila come to you first because you sat there patiently. Thanks Oliver. Lots of great questions coming in from the audience as well so. The disconnect between, you know, the sort of vision and broad narratives versus action is, is one of the world over and I think one of the questions coming from the audience, asking, you know is China actually better equipped to kind of lead really strong environmental reform than democracies is one that is on a lot of people's minds as as democracies around the world are struggling. I think that, you know, on the one hand the Chinese have it right that governance needs to be central and I think we, we will have a lot more clarity about actions and specific. You know, steps that will be taken in the coming weeks once the 14th five year plan is out but what we do know is that governance and strengthening of central power will continue. I think that the 2030 and 2060 targets will drive both environmental policies going forward and those of energy and industry and economics. And I think, you know the specifics of what those actions will look like and how we then engage on issues of going out the Belt and Road Initiative China's investments overseas and what the climate the carbon footprint of those are will continue to appear when we see those targets. And also, following the, the 14th five year plan that we'll also see in the coming months, a rollout of specific sectoral of your plans on hydropower development on energy on, you know different sectors that they're those always follow the the broader and we can expect most many of those to come out before ahead of the CBD and climate cops which I think will give us a really strong signal about how China is going to show up in those meetings, and those negotiations. I think we can also expect that China will continue this questioning of about potential alternatives to GDP. You know the decision last year to not focus on setting a target for GDP is still up in the air whether that will happen again this year. But I think it's clear that we will see a continued focus on quality and not quantity. Thank you. Thank you, Sam. To you on on the 14th five year plan this big year what gives you hope is China going to construct or help construct an international agenda for us all across CBD cop and also green economy transition. Thanks. And yeah I'll try and keep it brief I mean it's a it's clearly a really huge year. But it has, you know, the super year for nature of course was supposed to be 2020. It was derailed by the pandemic, and I think the pandemic offers us, you know, a frame through which to think about the green recovery as well, because it was such a vivid demonstration of how fragmentation across systems between nations and particularly the breakdown of international cooperation can, you know, severely derail our ability to overcome global problems that are such a central part of kind of globalized systems. And really, it gives us some hope for you know how particularly a particular role for the state and for leadership in the sort of harnessing of technological innovation can be very powerful when when we need it. And you know we've seen that in the accelerated roller of vaccine development and so on that you know how incredibly important that is and and how widely that can be supported. You know, we can learn some lessons from, you know the ways in which we sort of need to to act in a coordinated way across across systems. This year of course that's going to mean acting across the COP26, which of course is hosted by the UK and Italy themselves host of the G20 and G7 this year. And then we've got CBD COP15 in Kunming. It was supposed to be in October last year, then it was going to be in May this year it's now looking more likely that it might be towards the end of this year. That gives the, you know the possibility of finding interlinkages between the COP15 and the COP26 particularly around the theme of nature based solutions this idea that through preserving nature we can also help to to preserve carbon sinks and that can be an important point of finding synergies rather than trade offs between the nature and climate agendas. Of course there's a strong link also to health nutrition and inclusive development that you can find around all these kind of SGG themes and around the green recovery. I think that's going to link very importantly to the work that colleagues like Yunnan are doing around around debt and development challenges in the developing world. I think there's going to be a very strong demand from developing world countries for for the rich countries to get to make good on their promises around climate finance this year. Again, that is really cast in a new perspective for me by by COVID when we see the enormous spending that that country has been able to to to exercise very quickly in order to restimulate their economies. The you know 100 billion that that four countries are asking for at the at the climate talks suddenly kind of pales in in significance compared to the sort of spending that governments have been able to find to to bail out their industries. I do think that this offers us a kind of a moment for a rethink in going into a potential new super year, the 14 five year plan, clearly can be part of that. We will know the numbers, some of the top headline numbers by Friday I think that's it's likely when at the National People's Congress, Premier Lika Chen will give his sort of top headline targets that will include a presumably a growth target although as Lila says, that's sort of been downgraded about I think there will be probably a headline growth target. There'll be a carbon intensity target, which is of course, you know, carbon dioxide per unit of economic output. There'll be an energy intensity target that might even be for the first time an overall carbon emissions cap, which would be very significant kind of move. And from there will see fleshed out the, you know, the big kind of themes over the next six months or so around power and air pollution. Some of the other sort of big, big things that matter in terms of the economy. We already know some of the big themes, we know that it's going to look at so called new infrastructure, so called sort of new patterns of industrialization around energy, you know, electric mobility, AI, big data, 5G, all of those that moving up the value chain. And, you know, to wrap up quickly, I think, you know, when we think about the kinds of moves that have happened so far and have been so transformative in terms of China's climate policy, most of them really aligned with that economic agenda. That is to say, moving towards slower, higher quality growth, moving up the value chain away from energy intensive carbon intensive polluting production towards innovation and services, achieving technology leadership and particularly becoming the leading exporter of clean technologies to the rest of the world and creating markets for those technologies, as well as the link between that and as I think it was Andy Norton mentioned, kind of the link between that and legitimacy, particularly being seen to act on issues of public concern, and that prominently includes air pollution and other forms of local pollution. Thank you. Thank you, Sam. Very comprehensive answer. Look, I'm going to come back to the question of debt and money to you now in a second. So, warming that one up, you know, and but I'm coming to Andy first, really the sense of the prospects of international adoption of economic eco civilization question from James from our audience and a sense of, you know, the international diplomacy angle of US EU and China China's putting this, this concept out there as a narrative of it's only new. What is the sense that that policy will be successful. Yeah, I mean I, I don't see ecological civilization becoming a dominant framing factors like the US and the EU. Obviously, the Europe has taken a green deal framing largely from, I guess US discourse. The kind of narratives and content of the green deal proposal obviously underpin a lot of what's what's cooking in the US. I mean sounds given an incredibly good and comprehensive overview so I mean just to pick out a couple of things. One thing is, in terms of the geopolitical context, I can't think of a time when the major blocks have had so much to do internally domestic agendas that are so incredibly challenging. I mean if you look at what the Biden administration will have to do. If it's trying to get the pandemic stimulus through now, then it will look for extra trillions on green transformation huge challenges in terms of getting that through obviously a very tightly poised kind of Senate in particular so. The national agenda will be really important and the Biden administration's put out the signals on that with Kerry and with others, but they will have an amazing amount to do domestically as will the EU. So, that kind of, I think creates opportunities for China to be influential if it takes the narratives forward it's still not entirely clear to me how far that's going to happen. And just a final thought I mean this again echo stuff that some were saying but the geopolitical context has a number of elements one is who's going to lead on pandemic recovery as pandemic recovery right. Leave aside the green bit and how is that going to play out debt in particular China's position holding more bilateral debt than any of the countries very critical there. And also the elements of vaccines and the sort of vaccine diplomacy that will roll out over the coming year will also have huge geopolitical ramifications and then as others have mentioned the kind of competition for markets in green technology green kit consumer kit and so on. So it's, I think it's a really complex overall framing and one where domestic challenges and this kind of broader geopolitical context will set the framework within within which certainly the CBD rolls forward, and to an extent the COP26 as well. So it's hard to say how that will come out and how, how it will emerge I mean it feels obviously like an area where the international agenda for green transformation is very competitive. So how that fits in with the big international conferences will be really interesting to see unfold. Just a final thing is that. So far, I think the Chinese agenda on CBD is much less clear than it is on climate mitigation and the various agendas around that. I would encourage to hear from Sam a sense that that there is something yet to come in that space, which would be great to see. I think everyone is anticipating COP 15 to be October at the earliest so the space for development there is a really interesting one. Thanks. Thank you Andy. So, you know, I wonder about the money piece we hear Andy say that China is more of the COVID debt than than others and this sense that Sam brought up that we developing countries 100 billion for climate action and always way too much and all of a sudden trillions are swilling through the world's magic money trees from wherever and but I mean there is a genuine sense that at some point you have to pay this money back and you know what what conditionality doesn't come with and and are we going to have to spend it again all over again when we when we don't get this stimulus right, and we then have to pump it back into the system to get the green recovery on track and extraordinary sense of, of where is the money what conditionality does it doesn't have a conditionality is what's in green recovery show me the money show me where it's directed and show me how it's going to be spent and China's role in all of that extraordinary powerful and extraordinarily important. Your thoughts on on that. Thank you touch on on several interesting issues there I mean one one major kind of elephant in the room is this question of developing country debt and just how outsize the role China plays in that. And yes it's it's going to be a major problem for public financial systems and for governments and developing countries for years to come. On top of the sort of health and economic impacts of the of the pandemic on debt you know it's a it's a very difficult question for China on the one hand it's been. Again, trying to demonstrate. It's it's responsibility and trying to participate in sort of global governance systems around debt through the, the deaths of debt service suspension initiative and now that the G 20 common framework, and it is the biggest participant in that common framework agenda for restructuring and renegotiating bilateral debt to developing countries. And so where the lot of this Chinese debt is that it is, it is from commercial entities it's from. A lot of these are commercial loans they're not easily forgiven, and they're not easily restructured. And we've yet to see in terms of Chinese policy signals, whether they have a sort of long term approach on how to deal with the sort of struggling ability of developing countries to pay back this debt, other than the current status quo which is to just kind of keep kicking the can down the road and suspending repayments and and suspending service I mean one sort of instrument that's been proposed. And interestingly, Ecuador has had been trying to push this with China is to use debt swap so so debt for nature or debt for climate swaps where a portion of debt can be forgiven in return for preservation of biodiversity or pledges for financing to renewable energy or to clean tech sectors. And this is an area where potentially you're China's renewable energy role. China's role in financing renewable energy could be a sort of a win-win solution there. But I think broadly, we haven't seen very much overlap in that then diagram between between China's sort of climate role and and this this this problem of debt. What's clear in the future is that China is paying a lot more attention to to this question of what it's financing. And that will also include more attention to the to the ecological ramifications of the projects that it's financing and probably to ramp up in renewable and clean energy, which will include a huge increase in improbably hydropower finance. And in this other area of you know developing its own renewable energy sectors. But yeah this this yet to be a really meaningful interdinkage between these two issues. And this is an area which I think you know developing countries do need greater capacity to to push and to negotiate with China on and there is also potential I think for for greater trilateral cooperation and and and for EU China cooperation to to work with developing countries and build up their their clean energy sectors to have a green economic recovery. As well as hopefully resolving that problem. Thank you. Thank you very much. Okay, so we're getting relatively close to close all this so I'd like to try and bring give Lila a bit of a bit of a final word. So the things that really resonate from the work you've done with me and also what everyone else has said. Andy said there is a great deal of work to be done to sort of walk the talk nationally and that's that's similarly for the EU, similarly for the US similarly for China. The international agreement or potential and I'm not sure whether I mind whether or not something is a discourse or what we label things as long as the intention is there of reducing carbon and looking at the nature and making our economic transition. More sustainable as quickly as possible. The links into CB, the nature of some of the climate summit and how those will be moments to accelerate. So what's what Sam said that's really stuck with me is this sense of China, needing stability, needing security and eating religious and this is that sense of stability. Priority for for China and whether or not it can achieve stability nationally, unless it helps achieve stability globally. So confidence to step into a global agenda and be a constructor of international transitions or an accelerant from transition over and above its own national priorities. Those are what I'm struggling with and so I'm still slightly struggling but I think I'm further along down the line. Support engage. Your conclusions on that for the GC, and what we, what we should do next on our journey of understanding. All right, there's a lot there. Thank you Oliver, and thank you everyone for a really lively discussion that we can only skim the surface of unfortunately in this time but just to answer your question from from back to start. What we should do next is there's a lot of kind of percolating up in the questions. I think this looking to China, you know pinning our hopes on China, because we're really struggling, you know, the geopolitical challenges are really severe this year and and around the world and there's this sense of, oh, could we, couldn't we look to China, but we're also a little bit scared about what that means. And I want to just flag that as a next step within the GC, we plan to sort of look at that question head on the international piece so this paper was very much about. To understand eco civilization within the Chinese context, let's, let's get really clear that this is about priorities of stability within China of legitimacy of rule of security as we have we, as we've discussed. And as a next step, we are going to be tackling head on some of the questions that have come up in the Q&A around, you know, to what degree is this, can it even be a narrative that is internationalized. What would it look like, let's look more about green BRI I would just flag for some of those questions, looking at Tyler Harlan's paper last year that specifically looked at exam steps that are being taken. That's a really good piece of research but we will also continue to discuss that. For me that the takeaways in this question of, you know, can we even pin hopes on China should should we be in looking at ecological civilization and the challenges this year and the decisions that needs to be made as a global community is that the question of governance is really key. Does China have the answer as an authoritarian approach. I have big questions about that I think there are really real concerns about using authoritarian means to reach environmental ends. And, you know, we have to not get too rosy I about about that. And then, I would say there are there are some specific tools that we can look at from China's experience in implementing some of the policies that will have transferability overseas. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much to our panel. Sam, you know, Andy. Thank you very much. It's been a fascinating journey of discovery of China and I think you achieved what you said out to achieve like we've, we've now become much more knowledgeable about China much more empathetic to its own internal challenges. What we can expect of it on the global stage and I think that's really very, very valuable and we will address the next question of what does that mean for the international more specifically in nature and the climate negotiations and discussions. And what that means for European policymakers or American policy makers, and what that means for green economy coalition and colleagues as well so we're very grateful for all of you today. And if you can signal the report. It's out now, please have a look. But also keep, let's keep this discussion going China is China matters. And that's really critical for us. Thank you. All of you. Thank you ID for hosting us GC and participants. Sorry if you didn't get to all of the questions. Have a lovely day and hope you follow up on the report. Thank you.