On 26 November 2020, Climateworks Australia CEO Anna Skarbek joined a special panel to launch ‘Sustainability of the Asia Century’, as part of the Disruptive Asia series hosted by the Asia Society. Hosted by CNN Indonesia’s Desi Anwar, the event also featured former Prime Minister of New Zealand Helen Clark, President of WWF International Pavan Sukhdev and Vice-President for Knowledge Management and Sustainable Development of the Asian Development Bank Dr Bambang Susantono.

In her remarks, Anna Skarbek noted the rapid advances of the trend to sustainable finance.

‘And on the policy front,’ she added, ‘we’re seeing carbon pricing advancing perhaps faster than some Australians might realize, that following China, Japan and South Korea, countries now, including Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam, are underway in developing carbon price mechanisms. And just last week, Vietnam passed the revised legislation that would legalize an emissions trading scheme in Vietnam.’

She also stressed the urgency of the task.

‘In climate action terms, we talk about 2030, the next decade as the point by which we must halve global emissions. It’s all countries working together. This requires a rapid acceleration of investment, but it can be done. We do have the solutions. And so the confluence of this moment, the beginning of that decade of 2020, arriving with covid means that there is this make-or-break chance now for the economic recovery investments to achieve the double goals of stimulating the economy while accelerating the investments into climate aligned infrastructure so that we can have worldwide emissions in that decade. We know it can be done, but it needs that surge and acceleration.’

You can watch the full panel on the Disruptive Asia website.