Launch Event of the 2024 Paulson Prize

A recording of these remarks can be found on YouTube and Tencent

Ladies and gentlemen,

Thank you to the Paulson Institute and Tsinghua University for the invitation to address this year’s launch event of the Paulson Prize for Sustainability.  

Our planet is at a crossroads in the face of an unprecedented number of sustainable development challenges. The climate crisis remains the most pressing existential threat we face, as the earth experiences more extreme weather events such as rising sea levels, heatwaves, wildfires, hurricanes, and flooding. 

The UN Secretary-General, Mr António Guterres, has said, “Global temperatures keep rising. And our planet is fast approaching tipping points that will make climate chaos irreversible. We are on a highway to climate hell with our foot still on the accelerator”.

Biodiversity loss and species extinction rates are becoming increasingly alarming. Many countries continue to face public health problems due to air and water pollution. 

This triple planetary disaster of climate change, biodiversity loss, and air pollution causes havoc everywhere, impacts millions of people, and has significant economic consequences.

As we approach the halfway point of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the globe is falling behind schedule in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). We will fail to meet the SDGs' headline targets unless we increase our ambition, build up credibility, and take implementation to the next level.

COP 28 concluded with an accord that marks the "beginning of the end" of the fossil fuel era by providing the groundwork for a rapid, just, and equitable transition, supported by strong emissions cuts and increased financing. It clearly indicates the direction of travel in the energy transition, and that the scale and velocity of change cannot be stopped or reversed. 

The conclusions of COP28 serve as both a beacon of hope and a harsh warning of the work that remains. Here, the green economy must help us not only minimize or eliminate environmental dangers, but also accomplish long-term development and economic growth while protecting biodiversity and varied environmental habitats. 

At the global level, agreements such as the Paris Agreement of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework of the Convention on Biological Diversity demonstrate the global community's commitment to addressing these challenges.

However, as each year passes, the urgency increases. If we are to meet our climate and biodiversity targets, we must broaden the scope and scale of our actions beyond incremental change, identifying potential game changers and innovators who will lead us to a stable climate and a nature-positive economy while improving water, food, energy, social, and ecological security. 

Our capacity to meet the SDGs will depend on bold new solutions, an all-of-society approach and the coordinated alignment of technology, policy, and markets to encourage additional innovation, direct private sector investment, and create and deploy projects at scale and across borders.

China, the world's second-largest economy and one of the world's 12 mega-biodiverse countries, can lead in the global transition to a green economy. In recent years, I've witnessed China's ambition, progress, and leadership in green energy and renewables. Given China's size, innovations created here can benefit the rest of the globe. 

That is why the Paulson Prize is so valued and needed. By finding and honouring replicable, transformative sustainability ideas from China, the Paulson Prize shines a focus on the solutions and revolutions that can help us reach our climate change and biodiversity loss goals, while sharing that knowledge with the rest of the world. 

This is an invitation for pioneering innovators to contribute and help us design a better path for our planet. I hope that you are able to share your expertise and commit to making the earth a greener, more sustainable place for current and future generations. 

I wish the very best of luck to all participants for this year’s Paulson Prize.