South-South Cooperation Stands Out in the Climate Change Challenge – An Exclusive Interview with UNEP Deputy Executive Director Ibrahim Thiaw

Multiple Dimensions Needed for Effective Cooperation 

Tackling climate change involves a broad spectrum of topics from energy, trade, transportation, to health and poverty reduction, "So they cross-reference with different public sectors like commerce, agriculture, and education," Thiaw said. During his stay in Beijing, he held discussions with the Chinese Ministry of Environmental Protection as well as with the Ministry of Commerce and National Development and Reform Commission on reaching broader consensus and cooperation. Thiaw believes that all sectors, not just environmental departments, should address climate change.

Before being appointed UNEP deputy executive director and UN assistant-secretary-general in 2013, Thiaw had for some time served as director of the Division of Environmental Policy Implementation. He led the biggest UNEP division in cooperating with agencies within the UN system and also non-UN bodies. One example is the UNEP-UNDP Poverty and Environment Initiative, which helps developing countries improve management of the environment. This contributes directly to poverty reduction, as it is people living in poverty that most depend on natural resources for their livelihoods.

Through its liaison country office in Beijing, the UNEP established a concrete partnership with the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology, Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, and banking systems like the People's Bank of China. It also conducts full-scale cooperation with the municipal governments of Beijing, Guiyang, and Tianjin, with such research organs as the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and with universities.

It is noteworthy that UNEP's partnership with China is in the science and technology sector. New emerging green technologies constitute one of the guarantees of overcoming climate change. China also leads in many green technologies transferrable to other developing countries, like LED lighting and solar panels. In 2012, the UNEP co-established the Global Efficient Lighting Center (GELC) in China. Its aim was to promote high-efficiency LED lighting, and to help set up related policies, standards, and quality inspection systems in African, Asian, and Pacific countries, based on China's experience and technologies.  

China and other developing countries are at similar stages of development, which makes understanding one another's demands much easier and cooperation successful. "This is the core of South-South Cooperation," Thiaw said. However, different socio-economic situations probably still impede transfers of technologies and experience. Of foremost importance is making sure that the technologies are good and clean enough to be adapted to other countries, Thiaw said.

But that is not sufficient. Thiaw declared that we should give full play to the market in the course of climate cooperation. "Environmental undertaking is not philanthropy," Thiaw said, "it is about business, new business." Taking the aviation industry as an example, energy-efficient technologies will save on companies' fuel budgets; a new flushing system, for example, will enable the loading of less water on aircrafts, which will also saves airline companies' energy-usage, as water is one of their heaviest properties. Mindful of the profit margins of green tech and policies, the market will voluntarily search out the most efficient products and adapt them to local demands.

If the market is fully aware of the value of green technologies and policies, funds from financial markets, capital markets and bank systems will be channeled into this field, Thiaw said. "A healthy planet and profits are not incompatible -- you can have both." In fact, many forward-looking entrepreneurs have arrived at this understanding. The UN high-level official said that stock markets, no matter in Shanghai or New York, pay close attention to clean energy and air quality, while only 10 years ago, "everyone was talking about oil and fossil fuel."