清华大学科学社会学与政策学沙龙第78期

题目：Environmental finance: Connecting markets in space and time
报告人：Dr. Janelle Knox-Hayes Assistant Professor
(Georgia Institute of Technology)
时间：9月28日（周五） 上午10：00-12：00
地点：明斋241（清华图书馆西北侧）
联系电话：62773013

Abstract

Asian financial centers are developing carbon markets and other environmental financial services. China has developed climate exchanges in Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin. In addition, environmental finance is taking root in other cities including Hong Kong, Singapore and Tokyo through the initiatives of private actors. The establishment of environmental markets in these cities is significant for several reasons.  Once fully realized carbon markets are predicted to be larger than other commodity markets.  First movers who are able to claim significant market share and institutionalize paths and mechanisms of finance will enjoy an advantage.  Based on the size of its economy and the rate of industrialization, China is a natural center for these markets.  Furthermore, carbon markets are intended as demonstration markets.  If negative externalities can be managed through market mechanisms, then so too can positive externalities including ecosystem services, environmental conservation and biodiversity.  This paper explores the institutional transfer of environmental finance into new cultural contexts and comments on the growing role of private authority in developing environmental governance.  By mapping networks, market flows and proximity this article illustrates the ability of environmental markets to link the management of environmental goods and services in space and time.Environmental markets have developed around carbon obligations, and yet these mechanisms of pricing externalities have created considerable inertia for environmental governance.  As Asian financial centers respond to and develop these markets they adapt to some of the norms of Western finance and yet shape and connect the markets in new ways.  The movement of environmental and underlying energy markets into Asia represents a potential geopolitical shift of financial power from the West to the East.

Biography

Janelle Knox-Hayes is an assistant Professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology School of Public Policy and a research associate of the School of Geography and the Environment at Oxford University.  Janelle completed her DPhil in Economic Geography and MSc in Environmental Policy at Oxford University Centre for the Environment.  She completed a BA at the University of Colorado at Boulder, with a triple major in Ecology, International Affairs, and Japanese Language.  Janelle worked at the Government Accountability Office in Washington D.C. prior to being selected in 2005 for a Jack Kent Cooke Scholarship to complete her graduate studies.  Janelle has a range of research interests spanning creativity in the public sector to the political and economic dynamics underpinning energy transition and sustainable development.  She has published academic articles in top journals including the Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Journal of Economic Geography and Strategic Organization. She is conducting research on the development and institutionalization of environmental markets in Asia as an Abe Fellow from 2012-2013. At the Georgia Institute of Technology Janelle teaches courses on environmental finance, sustainability and political economy.