Prof. Yao Wang, Director General of International Institute of Green Finance, was invited to speak at the panel discussion with Mr. Gauri Jauhar, Executive Director, Energy Transition & Cleantech Consulting in IHS Markit, on April 13th via Zoom.
“Women in Leadership Series” is an initiative within IHS Markit to build a diversified workforce and promote diversity and Inclusion in the workplace.
In this session, Prof. Wang shared her personal experiences and professional challenges as a woman during her ten years of work as an academic and financial leader. She noted that women still face significant challenges despite unique advantages, both in financial and scientific research institutions. Simultaneously, being a woman herself, Prof. Wang is not biased against other women. 2/3 of the employees in IIGF are women. There are so many research outputs produced by IIGF every year to which female colleagues made outstanding contributions.
Prof Wang and Gauri exchanged their insights into the COVID-19 effect on global energy transition, the pathway for countries and companies to achieve net-zero targets, and the future of ESG reporting and benchmarking for financial institutions.
“Central bank officials and supervisory bodies are increasingly realizing the financial risks caused by climate change and the importance of greening the financial systems.”
Investors are divesting from fossil fuels to avoid the risk of stranded assets. A lot of research in 2020, including the ones from IEA, Oxford, and our own, has proved that renewables’ cost is already lower than fossil fuels’ cost. As the development of new energy sources can also bring more new jobs and accelerate the recovery.
Professor Wang stressed that to facilitate energy transformation and carbon emission reduction, investors should not only focus on supporting the development of renewable energy, such as photovoltaics, wind power, biomass energy, and green hydrogen, which are currently under the spotlight, but also put their attention on “transition finance” to accelerate the transition of fossil fuel industries, especially coal and coal chemical industries.
Asked about her motivation to work in the field, despite the challenges, Prof. Wang replied that. Prof. Wang was one of the first people in China who saw the potential for green finance development. When she began to research the relationship between climate change and finance, she initially met with a lot of discouragement. However, the passion for protecting the environment was the biggest motivation for her to carry on the hard work. Through all these years, the concept of green finance has evolved. The topic of green finance gained recognition and support, strengthening her confidence and motivating her to intensify work in this field. “There is still a lot of work that needs to be done, and I feel that I could use my knowledge and experience to contribute to these efforts.”