This week I was at the Green Finance Initiative annual conference in London. (Agenda here)
I listened to Nick Stern (or Lord Stern) speak about the risks and opportunities of climate change and finance and investment.
To be brutally honest, Stern was preaching to the converted and while everything he spoke about made sense I don’t think it was new to anyone in the room.
That said, it did bring together a lot of professionals, experts, NGOs, regulators etc. To chat and the second order effects of mingling outside of a core expertise - I believe - is valuable.
I also learnt a little about the Belt and Road endeavour from China. A few people involved in projects around the endeavour spoke on a panel.
It happens to be potentially the largest ever infrastructure project in the world with approaching one trillion dollars worth of capital spend. It has a Silk Road element - the belt part which are overground corridors to/from China and the Road part (perhaps confusingly) are sea links, or maritime corridors.
There’s a summary from McKinsey here and one on the Guardian here.