Speeding up Climate Mitigation around the World: The Role of IPE

The Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs (IPE) was founded in 2006 with a mission to clean up severe air and water pollution in China and to safeguard the planet. It developed China’s first public environmental database, as well as the Blue Map, a mobile app that visualizes air, water, soil, and ocean quality data and tracks the performance of hundreds of thousands of major emitters. The information has proven to be a potent lever for improving environmental conditions and environmental governance across China. To help speed up climate actions domestically and abroad, in 2020 IPE launched the Blue Map for Zero Carbon and began to collaborate with partners to develop the regional Carbon Peak and Neutrality Index and the Corporate Climate Action Index.

In an interview moderated by David Sandalow on April 10, 2023, IPE founder Ma Jun discusses the latest developments in its work.

Speaker

Ma Jun

Ma Jun, founding director, Institute of Public & Environmental Affairs (IPE), led the development and launch of China’s first environmental public database, as well as the Blue Map, a mobile app that visualizes air, water, and soil quality data and tracks the performance of hundreds of thousands of major emitters.  In 2020, he led the launch of the Blue Map for Zero Carbon and collaborated with professional organizations to develop regional Carbon Peak and Neutrality Index, as well as Corporate Climate Action Index (CATI).

Mr. Ma was named China’s “Green Person of the Year” and was among TIME Magazine’s World’s 100 Most Influential People (both in 2016). He won the Magsaysay Award (2009), the Goldman Environmental Prize (2012), the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship (2015), and the Asia Society’s Asia Game Changer Award (2022).

Moderator

David Sandalow

David Sandalow is the inaugural fellow at the Center on Global Energy Policy and co-director of the energy and environment concentration at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. He founded and directs the Center’s U.S.-China Program and is author of the Guide to Chinese Climate Policy. He teaches a one-to-two month short course each year as a distinguished visiting professor in the Schwarzman Scholars Program at Tsinghua University and co-directs the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations’ Track II Dialogue on Climate Finance. 

Mr. Sandalow has served in senior positions at the White House, and U.S. Departments of State and Energy. He is a director of the NCUSCR, Fermata Energy, and Enagás, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and a graduate of the University of Michigan Law School and Yale College.