Editor's Note: A green and low-carbon economy and society are crucial to China's high-quality development. To reach the carbon peak in 2030 and carbon neutral in 2060, China is transitioning to a model of green development. What are the challenges confronting China? And what opportunities will green economy bring? In China Talk, Leslie Maasdorp, vice president and chief financial officer of the New Development Bank shares his views. The article reflects the author's opinions and not necessarily those of CGTN.

Good day and welcome to China Talk. My name is Leslie Maasdorp, vice president and chief financial officer of the New Development Bank, also known as NDB, and sometimes referred to as the BRICS bank.

I've been very fortunate to be part of the bank since the inception when we were startup way back in 2015. Arriving in Shanghai, I've been lived there for the last 7 years. I've personally seen and experienced how, for example, the quality of air has been improved.

Now, China set itself a very ambitious objective, way back in 2020 when President Xi Jinping spoke to the UN General Assembly and committed the country to reach 2030 peak emissions and carbon neutrality by 2060.

And since then, this has been elevated as a national strategic goal for China. And it is now embedded in the decisions and the policies and the metrics of local government officials of the provinces and throughout the various government departments. This is a very ambitious objective, because China is still a developing country. It is still rapidly urbanizing. It is expanding its infrastructure rollout. In this process, it could potentially add to its emissions footprint. There will be significant challenges ahead as it seeks to stay on the course of this mandate to reach peak emissions by 2030.

At the same time, China has demonstrated significant leadership in the climate arena. As we know, the country is still very much dependent on coal as its principal source of electricity generation, because China is really the production hub, the manufacturing hub of the world. Many of its leading industrial sectors, steel, cement, chemicals, and so on, depend on fossil fuels and are reliant on the coal fire power generation.

So China's transition to a low carbon economy will require a massive shift in resources. It will require a massive shift in innovation, in new technologies to enhance the energy efficiency and resource productivity. This is where development banks play a very critical role, development banks like ourselves, Asia Infrastructure Investment bank, Asia Development Bank, and so on.

Now China has been on this journey for some time. This is not something that only took place since the Paris Agreement. For the last 20 years, China's dramatically increased its footprint of renewable energy. Today, as you might know, China is a global leader in electricity production from renewable energy sources.

Already, the World Bank estimates that China has created around 54 million green jobs with more than 4 million in renewable energy alone. In short, what I'm suggesting is that there will be significant opportunities emanating from this revolution. Some universities, for example, like Chongqing University, have set up green training programs for companies in sectors dealing with the environment, social and governance needs. But there's still a significant talent gap in the long run. And I believe that this is an area of significant opportunity for new talent and those of you (who) are there, starting your own businesses or starting to work for the first time, the green economy presents massive opportunities.

For many years, as I mentioned, China has been the world's largest investor, producer as well as consumer of renewable energy. More importantly, there's now a recognition, as I've highlighted, that climate change is a massive investment and business opportunity, so the private sector can play a significant role in delivering market-based solutions in stimulating new technological innovation. And in some cases, some of these technologies are still in production. Battery storage is a very good example. There is so much innovation happening in that domain that there will be new scientific breakthroughs that will create new opportunities for us to store energy. In this regard, the financial sector has a vital role to play to enable and to make sure that we design new financial instruments to fast track this clean transition.

(It is) critical for policymakers to examine what additional measures, policy, regulatory forms, what else needs to be put in place to tap into the potential of the private sector. There's no question that the government on its own and the public sector cannot address this massive transformation. We need the capacity of financial institutions to mobilize large volumes of capital from the private sector to enable and finance this important transition.

Way back in 2016, China hosted the G20 in Hangzhou just outside of Shanghai. It was a very important year because there was also the year that the renminbi became part of the global five global reserve currencies. And PBOC importantly, introduced The National Guidance on Building a Green Financial System. What's required now, though, is for this to be further refined, to have much clearer targets and policy metrics so that we can accelerate the process of greening the financial system here in China.

Significant progresses have been made, but there's still a lot that needs to be done. In short, what I'm suggesting is that the financial sector, both domestically in China and also internationally, has to play a fundamental and leading role to help with this multi-year and multi decade transformation. China will also gain significant value from studying, doing a detailed, comprehensive analysis and then reproducing the best practices from around the world.

Talking about best practices, I was absolutely struck by visiting the Kubuqi desert a couple of years ago and to see how that area has been transformed. What was completely barren desert before now has huge amounts of renewable energy, solar power that has been generated. They reforested and planted sort of trees again. It was an absolute fascination for me to see the self-driven vehicles, drilling holes, planting trees, watering those trees without a single human being being present. All of those vehicles were being controlled remotely from a control center. But in that desert, more than 100,000 people live in that area, as a consequence of the greening of that area. And it has won the United Nations award as part of its green innovation projects.

In conclusion, as a bank, we are inspired by the idea of replicating projects like what I've seen in the Kubuqi desert, which is about using modern technology, reproducing, multiplying, and also testing and experimenting, because you cannot overnight create projects of this size. This green transition also requires a process of learning by doing, walking, touching the stones, as the famous saying goes. As a bank, New Development Bank together with our peer institutions, this is our commission. And this is what excites us waking up in the morning to go to work, to contribute towards the building of green infrastructure. Thank you. 

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