Friday, March 21, 2025 | 10:00 AM EDT
The National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University, and the Beijing Green Finance Association, under the guidance of the Institute of Energy, Environment, and Economy at Tsinghua University, convened the fourth Track II Dialogue on Climate Finance and Trade in September 2024. The teams discussed foreign direct investment in climate-related projects, carbon markets, COP29 climate finance issues, and climate-related financial disclosures. Since the dialogue, the atmosphere for climate collaboration has vastly shifted.
In this conversation, recorded on March 21, 2025, Track II delegation leaders David Sandalow and Ma Jun, discussed the main takeaways from the dialogue and the future of global climate collaboration.
Speakers
David Sandalow
David Sandalow is the inaugural fellow at the Center on Global Energy Policy at the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University. He founded and directs the Center’s U.S.-China Program and is author of the Guide to Chinese Climate Policy. Mr. Sandalow teaches a course each year as a distinguished visiting professor at the Schwarzman Scholars Program at Tsinghua University. Mr. Sandalow has served in senior positions at the White House, State Department, and U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). He went to Columbia from the DOE, where he had served as under secretary of energy (acting) and assistant secretary for policy and international affairs. Previously, Mr. Sandalow was a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. He is a director of NCUSCR and Fermata Energy. Mr. Sandalow is a graduate of the University of Michigan Law School and Yale College.
Ma Jun
Ma Jun is president of the Institute of Finance and Sustainability in Beijing, chairman of the Green Finance Committee of the China Society for Finance and Banking, the Capacity-building Alliance of Sustainable Investment, and chairman of the Hong Kong Green Finance Association; co-chair of the Steering Committee of the Green Investment Principles for the Belt & Road and the International Platform on Sustainable Finance Working Group on Sustainable Finance Taxonomy; and honorary director general of the Beijing Green Finance Association. Dr. Ma was formerly the co-chair of the G20 Sustainable Finance Working Group, and a member of the PBOC Monetary Policy Committee. Earlier, he was chief economist of the People’s Bank of China, director of the Center for Finance and Development at Tsinghua University, chief economist for greater China at Deutsche Bank, senior economist at the World Bank, and an economist at the International Monetary Fund.
