On February 21-22, 2019, SIIS and the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) co-held the International Conference on “Global Climate Governance and China’s Role: Between Katowice and New York”.

SIIS Vice President Yang Jian and FES Resident Director of Shanghai Representative Office delivered the opening remarks. Vice President Yang Jian talked about the urgency of the current global climate issue and stressed the important position of climate issue in global governance and the important role played by China. Pantekoek agreed that China has played an irreplaceable role in the global fight against climate change, noting that the consensus reached by the international community to promote global emission reduction and the outcome of the Katowice climate change conference in Poland are of great significance.

The conference invited more than 40 experts, including Mr. Dimitrios Zevgolis, Deputy Head of the Delegation of the EU to the UNFCCC, Prof. Howard Bamsey, former Special Envoy on Climate Change of Australia, and Ms. Susan Biniaz, former Deputy Legal Adviser at the US Department of State. Participants had in-depth discussion on the results of COP 24, collective adaptation effors and merging security challenges from climate change, just transition and global structural transition, the UN system of climate governance, and the outlook of the 2019 UN Climate Summit.

At the conference, experts shared their opinions on issues of mitigation, adaption, market mechanism and institutional innovation in the process of global climate governance. They also discussed the publicity, practice and fairness in the specific operation of climate governance. In addition, the status and role of various stakeholder such as governments, enterprises and NGOs in climate governance have also attracted the attention of experts. At the conference, China’s unique role in the global climate governance system has been repeated stressed by scholars.

At the conclusion of the conference, Dr. Yu Hongyuan, director of the Institute for Comparative Politics and Public Policy Studies and Mr. Stefan Pantoek made the concluding remarks. Dr. Yu Hongyuan spoke highly of the outcome of the meeting, stressing the importance of the current grim situation of climate change and the process of climate governance itself to different actors such as governments, enterprises and the public, as well as the important role of consensus among different governance bodies in climate governance. Mr. Pantekoek pointed out that climate change itself involves many related issues and its global impact, briefly reviewed the efforts made by various countries in emission reduction, and stressed the important role of further promoting the continuous attention from all walks of life in the climate agenda.