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Minister Edmond Alphandéry exchanges with Bridge Tank experts about carbon pricing

Posted on 16 February 202128 May 2021 by the_bridge_tank

Edmond Alphandéry, former French Minister of the Economy and Chairman of the Task Force on Carbon Pricing, gave a long explanation of his vision of the place and importance of carbon pricing in the ecological transition, and highlighted the decisiveness of this measure in order to achieve the objective of carbon neutrality, within the framework of the Paris agreement.

Carbon pricing: an essential tool for the ecological transition

Minister Alphandery began by reminding us of the scale of the challenge posed by global warming and the complexity of the issues at stake : given that we emit 40 billion tons of CO2 each year, he explained that if we reasonably assume that the price of a ton of CO2 should be set at around 100€ (according to the main evaluations), then a carbon pricing system would cost €4,000 billion each year, which amounts to Germany’s Gross National Product (GNP).

In this context, the former minister sees carbon pricing as central to the fight against global warming. His explanation is simple: when carbon has a price, all economic agents (households, companies, the State) are encouraged to reduce their emissions, or even to stop them or to find alternatives, in order to reduce their expenses.
The speaker specified that there are two solutions currently applicable and applied in order to put a price on carbon. The first is a carbon tax, which is simple and effective, but politically difficult to implement and whose adjustment is complex. The second is the introduction of a carbon market, where emission permits are issued according to the total volume of emissions desired. Permits are bought by market participants in proportion of what they emit, and their price is defined by supply and demand.
According to the chairman of the Task Force on Carbon Pricing, the tautological advantage of the carbon market is that it is a market, and that it therefore encourages innovation and the adoption of virtuous behaviour by agents in order to resell their permits (see the example of Tesla in the United States). However, it has the disadvantage of being characterised by a high volatility of carbon pricing.
It is this last reason that prompted the former minister to chair the Task Force on Carbon Pricing in order to promote among decision-makers a targeting of the price of carbon rather than volumes, as is currently the case. On the European carbon market, for example, he said that this would give stability to a carbon price that had collapsed during the subprime crisis, and also increase visibility.

Against the threat of climate change, China must adopt and extend carbon pricing

Edmond Alphandéry then spoke about the role of China, whose place he considered to be unavoidable regarding these issues. The country’s emissions are indeed higher than those of the United States and Europe combined. In this respect, he pointed out that the Chinese government is aware of the importance of the issues at stake and has already promoted a number of ecological transition measures. For instance, he stated that there is already a carbon pricing system in China, even if the price remains largely insufficient for now and is limited to the energy sector.
The former minister also stated that, in his view, there is a real Chinese will to carry out reforms. He particularly welcomed the initiatives and discussions that are taking place between various European and Chinese personalities, discussions in which he himself took part, in order to defend a convergence of the carbon prices of the two powers.
For Edmond Alphandéry, if such a reform was promoted, it would be no less than a revolution in the fight against global warming.

In conclusion, the panelist made a proposal to the Chinese authorities regarding their major strategic programme that is the BRI. As the government increases energy investments, especially aimed at thermal power plants, Edmond Alphandéry would consider it relevant and effective to introduce an internal carbon price in the companies and industries financed by Chinese funds. This would simulate a carbon price and thus encourage decarbonisation, while sending a strong message to the international community by underlining the importance that China attaches to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Edmond Alphandéry said he would be ready to support such an initiative immediately.

Alphandery was one of the main speakers at the Bridge Tank forum on EU-China cooperation post-Covid-19.
He participated in a panel moderated by Philippe Coste, former French ambassador, on greening investment in the European Union (EU) and China, and on the challenges of the Belt & Road Initiative (BRI). The forum took place at the Palais Brongniart in Paris on 15 October 2020. Other speakers in this session were Pierre-Noël Giraud, Professor of Economics at the Ecole des Mines de Paris, Djellil Bouzidi, member of the Haute Autorité de la Statistique and of the Bridge Tank’s Board, and Song Luzheng from Fudan University.

Exchange on the role of culture in international relations between Irina Bokova, former Director-General of UNESCO and the experts of the Bridge Tank

Posted on 15 February 202128 May 2021 by the_bridge_tank

The first woman elected as Director-General of UNESCO, Minister of Foreign Affairs in Bulgaria in 1996, and former Bulgarian ambassador to France, Irina BOKOVA is a passionate politician, who shares the values of openness and dialogue with the Bridge Tank. During her career, she became involved in international efforts in favor of equality between women and men, education for all and access to culture. Among her many fields of action, scientific cooperation for sustainable development is particularly close to her heart. She has also pleaded for Bulgaria’s membership of the EU and NATO, and continues to campaign for European integration by promoting the values of diversity and human rights.

Irina Bokova, Board member of the Bridge Tank and co-organizer of the EU-China post-covid Cooperation Forum

From the opening session, the former Director-General of UNESCO recalled that Sino-European cooperation should take into account a human and cultural aspect, like said in the Sustainable Development Goals of the 2030 Agenda, which will allow a constructive link in the economic, political, security and environmental fields.

She gave a more “UN” dimension to the debates, to reflect on multilateralism, globalism and the climate, in which China and the EU are key actors. Dialogue between these two powers is therefore essential to build a more inclusive, sustainable and multilateral post-covid world and reform the multilateral system, as she said in the Forum on January 21. Irina Bokova insisted on the growing role of China in this project : she recalled President Xi Jinping’s carbon neutrality commitments by 2060, the central place of China in the recovery of global activity, as well as Beijing’s role in integrating culture and science into the United Nations 2030 Agenda.

What post-covid human exchanges?

Irina Bokova federated the debates around the question of human exchanges, be they cultural, educational or scientific in the development of a vision of the future. This essential theme must be part of the wider debate on geopolitical issues and ecological transitions. The former Minister of Foreign Affairs affirmed that there is a convergence in the thoughts on this aspect of cooperation between the EU and China, which are two great cultural powers. It is therefore an essential aspect of the current debate on the refocusing of Sino-European relations, all the more crucial as China has invested heavily in the areas of culture and identity in recent years.

Indeed, Xi Jinping has revived a major UNESCO project, the Silk Road, by giving real importance to heritage, cultural and identity issues. The new Silk Roads, beyond trade flows, must play a role in building intercultural bridges. In addition, China now ranks first on the UNESCO World Heritage List. This sector is an integral part of its economy, showing the world that culture and its industries can play a significant role in the growth and trade of a country.

The digitalization of cultural exchanges

Irina Bokova dwelled on the place and dangers of digital in the promotion of culture. With its ability to create bridges between societies, it has enormous potential, to such an extent that the United Nations will soon adopt measures that makes access to digital a human right. However, she warned of the worrying risks associated with technology : it tends to standardize and erase diversity and threatens to fragment societies by creating isolation and alienation in communities.

On the condition therefore of being part of an ethical approach at the service of humanity, technologies remain a space of extraordinary creativity and an unparalleled connection platform, making it possible to link museums to the digital world by arousing curiosity about cultural projects. The former director of UNESCO concluded that a nation never awakens without curiosity for its culture, something that China understood well when it completed in seven years the construction of 5 000 museums, and for the culture of the others, pillar of all cooperation and bulwark against intolerance.

Irina Bokova is a Bridge Tank’s Board Member, which regularly shares her thoughts and expertise. She notably co-organized and opened the post-Covid EU-China Cooperation Forum alongside Joël Ruet, President of the Bridge Tank and Sylvie Bermann, French Ambassador to China.

On October 15, 2020, this “hybrid” Forum brought together four former ministers, five former ambassadors and around thirty experts at the Palais Brongiart in Paris, as well as around a hundred registrants on three continents, to share nourished, informed and precise on economic, industrial, social and cultural questions on the EU-China relationship.

Exchange with Minister Brune Poirson on EU’s Economic package, energy and ecological transitions in China and Europe

Posted on 15 January 202128 May 2021 by the_bridge_tank

Brune Poirson, a Vice-President of the United Nations Environment Assembly and former Secretary of State to the French Minister of Ecological Transition and Solidarity of Emmanuel Macron, came to bring her expertise in a conversation with the Bridge Tank.

She highlighted the importance of dynamics such as the 2015 Paris Agreement, the Chinese government’s commitment to become carbon neutral by 2060, as well as the European Commission’s Green Deal and the Belt and Road Initiative. She argued that these initiatives would help develop global governance that include more trade with and between developing countries.

China: a natural ally for Europe for climate

She supported the importance of engaging with China and said that she “never misses an opportunity to engage in dialogue and mutual understanding with China.” She stressed the importance of respecting the Paris Agreement. She also referred to the withdrawal of the United States from the Paris Agreement, a delicate situation for France and Europe, which had to adapt and find other allies. China met the requirements of the emergency and “proved to be a natural ally on these issues. “Brune Poirson drew attention to the “very strong symbolic act” of China’s commitment, which does not have the same way of building and implementing public policies as the EU.

Moreover, these strong trends were accentuated during the COVID-19 pandemic and highlighted US protectionism. This has allowed Europe to accelerate its vision, on environment being a tool of power and might for the European Union. In particular with the Green Deal, which was then transformed into a recovery plan. The Green Deal responds to a vision of the world including trade with other areas, clear territorial missions existing on both sides, and it responds to a common vision of the EU and China. The European Commission’s Green Deal is financed by the recovery plans (with the support of the EIB), while China uses the Belt & Road Initiative, financed by government-to-government loans, export banks (China Development Bank), or multilateral banks (AIIB).

The European Heads of State will have to respond to these ambition tests at the next European Council and will then have to prove their commitment by raising the CO2 reduction targets. The People’s Republic of China, organizer of the COP15-Biodiversity, will have to show its capacity to engage third parties in international cooperation (in particular ASEAN on forestry issues).

A strategic panorama that hides massive and common challenges of energy transition

Also present at the Forum were the following personalities: Ding Yifan, researcher at the Institute of Global Development of the Development Research Centre of the State Council of the People’s Republic of China, and Thomas Melonio, Executive Director of Innovation, Research and Knowledge at the French Development Agency. They spoke in the session “Restart, energy and ecological transitions in China and Europe”, moderated by Raphaël Schoentgen, former CTO and member of the executive committee of ENGIE and former president of Hydrogen Europe.

In addition to Brune Poirson’s remarks, Ding Yifan argued that decarbonisation of Chinese energy production was a key element in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but that it also required the transformation of the economy in several Chinese regions. Significant Chinese investment is being made to encourage the transition to hydrogen, and this is an area where cooperation between the EU and China could be beneficial to both sides. Thomas Melonio argued that it was crucial that Africa be included in the new cooperation agreements, especially as the Chinese and European development banks have the same objectives regarding Africa.

Brune Poirson, Ding Yigan and Thomas Melonio spoke at the Forum on China-Europe Relations and the Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic. This forum took place at the Palais Brongniart on 15 October 2020.

Intervention of François Loos, former Minister of Industry and Foreign Trade, at the Bridge Tank about the shared visions of future between the EU and China

Posted on 5 January 202128 May 2021 by the_bridge_tank

As an experienced practitioner in the world of industry and international trade, François Loos argues for the necessary restructuring of EU-China relations, by submitting the idea that the Chinese resilience shows the way for a recovery in global activity

An alumni of Ecole Polytechnique, a high civil servant from Ecole des Mines by training, François Loos is also a committed politician, who was a Member of Parliament for Bas-Rhin, regional councilor for Alsace and Minister of Industry and Foreign Trade in the Villepin and Raffarin governments under the Chirac presidency.

In support of a united Europe

During his speech on post-covid globalization, François Loos explained that the EU-China relationship is hampered by bilateral relations instead of responding to a community approach. EU countries need to be coordinated and consistent with China. Indeed, the lack of EU unity is a dangerous handicap, as illustrated by the example of photovoltaic production in Europe threatened by Chinese imports. He highlighted the flaws in the European mode of governance, based on the will of consumer countries and on a majority decision-making system incapable of combating dumping or of speaking with one voice in the WTO.

Between the search for independence and strategic cooperation

COVID has demonstrated to everyone the need to aspire to independence, or non-dependence, from one’s neighbors. For François Loos, this autonomy can only be acquired for the EU on condition that it also has national champions in strategic sectors, in particular in the industry.

However, independence does not exclude cooperation. Far from having been mitigated by the crisis, the weight of China in the world economy has increased and makes the issue of Sino-European cooperation all the more central, as evidenced by the new Sino-European agreements’ negotiations.

This search for national independence is not always strategic according to the former minister : he mentioned the case of “good relocations”, those where the establishment of a company in a foreign country serves the local market. It remains to be seen whether China will accelerate the implementation of the measures planned to encourage Europeans to set up in China on an equal footing with local businesses.

Towards a shared vision of the future

The former minister insisted on the need to combine Chinese and European visions of the future. For that, it is necessary to define the strategic subjects to orient the Sino-European cooperation. Like the EU which was initiated in 1952 by a collaboration on coal and steel, he called for cooperation based on issues of common interest that would found a new type of relationship at the global scale and with China. The subject of raw materials, agricultural and mineral, for example, is a central fulcrum of this cooperation, strategic on both sides in terms of energy and food since China depends on its imports to feed its population.

Likewise, the environment is another necessary subject of cooperation with China, on condition that the issue is not only approached from the perspective of large companies, but rather associated with it, at the local level, the world of small and medium-sized enterprises, cities, communities, which are closer to reality and concrete solutions.

At the EU-China Cooperation Forum held on January 21, 2021, the former minister clarified that these collective visions could not exist without common standards and regulations. It is indeed essential that questions of the environment, energy, raw materials and food have a horizon that can be understood and shared by European countries, the United States and China.

To achieve a precise and open dialogue with China, François Loos recommended organizing international working groups to define these visions of the future, generate a state of trust and move forward together in these specific sectors.

François Loos closely follows the works of the Bridge Tank, notably on the EU-China Cooperation. These views were expressed during the Forum for EU-China post-covid cooperation, organized by the Bridge Tank on October 15, 2020.

Meeting between Hakima El Haite, President of the Liberal International and Ivorian President Alassane Ouattara

Posted on 16 December 20202 April 2021 by the_bridge_tank

Hakima El Haite, President of Liberal International and member of the Bridge Tank’s board, had a private audience with Alassane Ouattara, the Ivorian President, on the 15th of December 2020. This event took place aside from Alassane Ouattara’s re-election and investiture as president, after his campaign as the candidate of the Rally of Republicans. He is also the leader of this party. They exchanged about the activities of the Liberal International, as well as about the development perspectives of Côte d’Ivoire.

Liberal International is the world federation of liberal and progressive democratic political parties. Recently, it notably called for democracy and human rights to be respected in the Ugandan elections and called on the United Nations’ Commission on the Status of Women to condemn violence against Egyptian women human rights defenders.

OMVS presents a check for 200 million CFA francs for the 9th World Water Forum

Posted on 12 December 20202 April 2021 by the_bridge_tank

Hamed Semega, member of the Bridge Tank’s board and High Commissioner to Sub-Regional Organisation for the Senegal River Basin Development Authority (Organisation de Mise en Valeur du Fleuve Senegal, OMVS), handed the organisers of the 9th World Water Forum (which will take place in 2022) a 200 million CFA francs check from the OMVS.

The official ceremony to welcome this financial support took place on the 11th of December 2020 in Dakar. During this event, an agreement of partnership was also signed between the OMVS and the forum’s executive secretariat to ensure cooperation between these two entities in 2021. In this agreement, the OMVS committed to support mobilisation of resources necessary to the organisation of workshops and other projects integrated to the Dakar 2021 initiative

Liberal forum for political dialogue: freedom of the press and the fight against fake news in the digital age

Posted on 7 December 20201 April 2021 by the_bridge_tank

El Hadj Kasse, member of the Bridge Tank’s board, was one of the keynote speakers of the Liberal Forum of Political Dialogue dedicated to the freedom of the press and the fight against fake news during the digital age. This event took place on the 7th of December 2020 in Dakar, Senegal.

Among the other keynote speakers were Seydou Gueye, Spokesperson and Communications Coordinator for the presidency of the Republic, Mamadou Ibra Kane, Director General of the Future Media Group, and Mame Less Camara, Director of Information for the Future Media group.

T20 handover between Saudi Arabia and Italy

Posted on 30 November 20201 April 2021 by the_bridge_tank

The T20 presidency handover between Saudi Arabia and Italy took place on the 30th of November 2020. The Argentinian, Japanese and Saudi chairs of the former presidencies attended this important event, to highlight the continuity of the works and research of the T20. The Bridge Tank has been a member of the T20 since 2016, and will participate to the Italian presidency’s works in 2021.

On the occasion of this handover, a debate was organised on themes such as the lesson from the past presidencies, the challenges and priorities for the Italian presidency, and the coming challenges for multilateralism. Among the keynote speakers of this debate were Pietro Benaéssi, Sherpa of the G20 for Italy, Fahad M. Alturki, Chair of the T20 for Saudi Arabia, Paolo Magri, Chair of the T20 for Italy, Julia Pomares and Gustavo Martinez, chairs of the T20 for Argentina, Naoyuki Yoshino, chair of the T20 for Japan, and Ettore Greco and Antonio Villafranca, coordinators of the T20 for Italy. This debate was chaired by James McGann, Director of the Think Tanks and Civil Societies Program of the Lauder Institute of the University of Pennsylvania.

2020 Horasis Asia Meeting

Posted on 30 November 20201 April 2021 by the_bridge_tank

During the annual Horasis Asia Meeting, which gathered 400 of the regions and the world’s most senior leaders from business and government, the speakers exchanged about the overcoming of the profound economic, political and social disruptions caused by COVID-19. This event took place on the 30th of November 2020.

Joël Ruet moderated one of the panels, entitled “ESG Investing in Asia Post-COVID”. Among the keynote speakers of this session were Ara Brutian, Director and Head of Digital Innovation for Sustainalytics, Rajiv Lall, managing director and vice-chairman of Infrastructure Development Finance Company, Kai Dai, CEO of Young Sustainable Impact Greater China and Chairman of the Kylin Prime Group, and Arun Sharma, President of Grovepike Associates. It was highlighted during this panel that data structuring and norms were at the centre of the post-COVID investments, and it was also underlined that this COVID crisis had to be considered as an opportunity for investment. The United States’ return to Asia, in terms of investments, was also noted. Voluntary disclosure and engagement was defined to be a key component of the future of finance, especially with the rising generational issues..

Democracies, Governances, Rules of law in Africa, which perspectives?

Posted on 27 November 20202 April 2021 by the_bridge_tank

Alain Dupouy, president of the Objective Future Africa Club (O2A) think tank and Alain Juppé’s former advisor for Africa, hosted a workshop which gathered political actors and activists from West African countries, notably Guinea, Tchad, Senegal, Ivory Coast, and Benin. This discussion was following the theme “Democracies, Governances, Rules of law in Africa, which perspectives?”. It took place on the 26th of November 2020.

Among the keynote speakers were Cellou Dalein Diallo, President of the Union of Democratic Forces of Guinea and former Guinean Prime Minister, Succès Masra, President of the Chadian Transformers Party, Abdoul Aziz Mbaye, former chief of staff for the Senegalese President Macky Sall, Alain Juillet, former head of the French General Directorate for External Security, Joël Ruet, President of The Bridge Tank, Laurent Bigot, former French diplomat, and Reckya Madougou, former Beninese Minister of Justice.

The points that were made during these exchanges were that democracy was perfectly compatible with Africa, as long as criteria of social justice and wealth redistribution were met. The international community also has to encourage dynamism for the private economic sector to help the professional development of the African youth. Africa’s future must be decided in Africa to ensure its longevity.