Kate Hampton is the long-serving CEO of the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF) and a Council Member of the China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development (CCICED), where she co-leads its research project on China’s carbon neutrality efforts and engagement in global climate change governance: the Special Policy Study Pathways for Achieving Carbon Neutrality and China’s Role in Global Climate Governance.
Hampton has emerged as a strong international voice on climate change issues through her work with CIFF and engagement in international organizations, including the European Climate Foundation and the Open Political Economy Network. We started off by asking Hampton to discuss where her passion for tackling climate change comes from.
“I have been advocating for action on environmental issues since I was 11, when I started reading newspapers and decided to make my school and local community better at recycling and tackling ozone depletion. I started working on climate at a very young age and built my career in climate—across civil society, finance, and government—because the climate emergency was already evident nearly four decades ago, and the science has only become clearer as the years have gone by. I care deeply about passing on a livable planet to children alive today. I get to spend some time in this role with wonderful young people, many of whom are fighting on the frontlines of this crisis, and in those moments in particular, I can’t imagine working on anything else.”
Fast forward to today: How does your current role as CEO of CIFF—a philanthropic organization that seeks to “transform the lives of children and adolescents”—enable you to engage in global climate change issues?
“CIFF is one of the largest independent philanthropies in the world and the largest focused specifically on improving children’s lives. Founded 20 years ago by London-based investor Sir Chris Hohn, CIFF is an independent charity regulated under U.K. law, with an active portfolio of grants worth over USD 2 billion. Half of that goes to work on issues like health, nutrition, and education, and half goes to tackling climate change and air pollution.
Although we are sometimes asked why a children’s charity is focused on climate change, the connection seems obvious to us. We do this work because the climate crisis is the single greatest threat to the future of today’s children, let alone future generations, and hundreds of millions of the most vulnerable children are already suffering the dire consequences of global warming and extreme weather.
Given the breadth of our work, I’m spending a lot of my time as CEO on the challenge of reforming the global financial architecture to ensure the multilateral system is fit to tackle the complex, intersecting challenges the world’s children currently face and that sufficient climate and development finance is available to the countries and communities who need it most.”
“I have been advocating for action on environmental issues since I was 11, when I started reading newspapers and decided to make my school and local community better at recycling and tackling ozone depletion … I can’t imagine working on anything else.”
What are the priorities for your climate mitigation and climate finance work this year?
“The issue of global finance and governance reform is foundational to everything else we’re trying to do. A profound financing gap is currently undermining our climate and development efforts—a gap that stands at well over USD 1 trillion per year in external finance for developing countries. Yet in 2023, USD 200 billion flowed out of developing countries to private creditors around the world, including Chinese creditors, which is much less than those countries received from international institutions. And at the time of writing, 3 billion people live in countries spending more on debt servicing than health or education, which hits children hard and of course leaves no room for investment in climate mitigation or adaptation.
Unless we create a system that can address these challenges, we will not reach net-zero in time or deliver on the Sustainable Development Goals. We cannot expect developing countries to come to COP30 with more ambitious national climate targets, or Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC), if sufficient public and private investment is not available for those countries to transition and adapt.
In practical terms, that means supporting the recommendations arising from the Bridgetown Initiative championed by Barbados, the Nairobi Declaration championed by Kenya, and the Paris Pact for People and Planet championed by France, all of which have involved much consultation and diplomacy, creating much-needed focus and momentum, including via the Indian G20 last year and the Brazilian G20 this year. We also need robust technical work and exchange to identify new sources of sustainable finance, to make existing international institutions work better, to address the debt crisis, and to overcome the barriers to emerging market finance put in place after the 2008 crisis. And we need to deliver on key elements of the UN Climate Change Conference (COP) finance package, such as the new forward-looking finance target.
All of this will be a primary focus of mine, of CIFF, and of many of our partners this year and next.”
“My role with CCICED offers me a unique opportunity to support such efforts. I particularly value the opportunity to engage directly with Chinese experts and decision-makers, to share insights and lessons learned from CIFF’s work and the work of our many partners around the world.”
You mentioned the landmark event in the international climate calendar: COP. What do you expect to be the key issues at the 2024 summit?
“As we look from COP 28 to COP 29 and beyond, implementation of the UAE Consensus is critical. Parties agreed in Dubai on ambitious goals, including tripling renewable energy capacity and doubling energy efficiency by 2030, as well as transitioning away from fossil fuels. All these commitments need to be turned into immediate actions and delivery plans. And countries’ NDC development should reflect this progressive ambition.
As the world leader in the deployment of clean energy, China has a huge amount to offer other countries in delivering on the COP 28 goals on energy transition, particularly in terms of advanced low-cost technology, as well as policy and business model expertise and green finance. China is also on the cusp of peaking greenhouse gas emissions and will soon begin substituting fossil energy with clean power, which will show the way for other Asian countries which have also relied heavily on coal until now.
Improving ambition on climate globally will require a step change in redirecting financial flows. And that is where COP 29 comes to the fore. The forward-looking target, or the New Collective Quantified Goal, in COP language, will be an important opportunity for building consensus around Nicholas Stern, Vera Songwe, and Amar Bhattacharya’s foundational analysis on finance for climate action and the UAE Finance Framework.”
Focusing on your work in China, how does what you’ve talked about so far overlap with your engagement in China and with CCICED?
“CIFF has offices around the world, including in Beijing. We started our China portfolio a decade ago because we recognize the global importance of China’s work on climate, both in terms of China’s own transition but also China’s contribution to efforts around the world, especially in developing countries.
My role with CCICED offers me a unique opportunity to support such efforts. I particularly value the opportunity to engage directly with Chinese experts and decision-makers to share insights and lessons learned from CIFF’s work and the work of our many partners around the world.
My work on the CCICED, in turn, supports collective action to find solutions to our shared climate and development challenges.”
You have been the co-lead for CCICED’s research on China’s climate actions and engagement in international climate governance for several years. What achievements and outcomes from this effort would you like to highlight?
“I’ve been honoured to work closely with Professor Wang Yi and Professor Zou Ji on the CCICED’s climate track for some time now. It’s been particularly rewarding to contribute through our research and recommendations to pivotal policy milestones in China’s climate transition despite the challenging backdrop of the global pandemic and the retrenchment from globalization.
Three examples stand out: China’s pledge on carbon peaking and carbon neutrality (dual carbon goals); President Xi Jinping’s commitment to strictly control coal consumption in the 14th Five-Year Plan and reduce it in the 15th Five-Year Plan; and China’s decision to end new coal power investment abroad. These policies represent major steps forward in both China’s own transition and its contribution to our global climate efforts.”
Can you talk more about the carbon neutrality goal? What progress have you seen since you began working with CCICED on this issue? And what are the key challenges on this from now until the end of the decade?
“China established the “1+N” policy framework to implement its dual carbon goals. And there’s already been some good progress under this framework. Wind and solar capacity have grown significantly (from 92 GW to 1,051 GW in the 10 years to 2023), and the cost of renewable energy has come down too. The penetration rate of new energy vehicles has risen dramatically in the last 5 years, from less than 5% in 2019 to over 30% last year. And green lending continues to increase very positively—delivering benefits in terms of clean technologies for developing countries.
Of course, challenges do remain. All countries, China included, continue to grapple with cross-ministry coordination on key climate actions like energy and industry decarbonization, the just transition, and sustainable supply chains. We’ll need to see more policy reform to create an even better enabling environment for green transition in areas like the provision of fiscal incentives and energy pricing. And we’ll need to see further work to mobilize and allocate resources domestically, recognizing that this work is the route to growth and the route out of the current fiscal constraints being felt by governments around the world. We need a new era of policy ambition, public investment, and public–private partnership to deliver against our common goals. Finally, as mentioned above, the international community is keen to see China’s world-leading deployment of clean energy translate into a reduction in coal-powered generation.”
“We need a new era of policy ambition, public investment, and public–private partnership to deliver against our common goals.”
Taking all this into account, what will you and your CCICED colleagues be focusing on this year?
“Our work this year will be tailored to support research on the preparation of the 15th Five-Year Plan and the development of China’s updated NDC—which the COP process mandates for delivery next year—and to respond to other pressing international challenges like the issues of global finance reform and sustainable supply chains. Just as China’s major climate policy announcements in 2021 generated significant momentum for all countries going into COP 26, the scale and urgency of our current climate and development challenges require similarly ambitious action by China and all major economies as soon as possible.
Domestically, we know China is about to peak its carbon emissions. So, it’s time now to lay solid foundations from which China will be able to decarbonize deeply after this inflection point. That means ambitious targets for 2030 and 2035—including in terms of coal reduction—which will be particularly important as clear market signals based on accelerated key policy reforms, like carbon cap control, and fiscal and financial incentives.
Internationally, whilst we did see progress at COP 28, and bilateral progress in moments like the Sunnylands Statement should also be commended, the headwinds do remain strong. The global economy remains scarred by the pandemic, with ongoing supply chain disruption and the issue of increasingly limited fiscal space around the world, particularly in heavily debt-burdened countries. This is compounded by rising geopolitical tension and electoral uncertainty. So, China has a critical role to play within the global climate effort—on its own and in partnership with other leading countries and processes like Brazil’s G20.
China’s overseas investment will be a key topic for me in my role with the Belt and Road Initiative International Green Development Coalition. As one of the world’s major creditors, China is uniquely well placed to engage constructively in global conversations on the easing of debt pressure for low-income countries, which is now a fundamental problem that demands a systemic response. A combination of high-quality foreign investment for growth and serious work to address the debt burden would boost fiscal space available in developing countries for sustainable development.
All that is, I think, quite the comprehensive work program!”
What role do you envision CCICED taking in the international sustainable development research and policy space in the years to come—and do you have any suggestions on how to get there?
“As well as all the specifics of the short- and medium-term work I’ve talked about above, CCICED has an important and ongoing role as a conduit between Chinese experts and decisions-makers and the international community working on the same issues. This work allows for trust-building and the strengthening of cooperation that will be critical if we’re going to deliver on our global climate efforts. We simply will not be able to do that unless China plays an active role in global collaboration. And I think CCICED can go even further than it already does, working to broaden the base of international voices that participate in this work, perhaps by bringing CCICED events and convenings into international fora like the COPs and engaging experts from a broader range of developing countries and civil society.”
The views expressed are those of the interviewee and do not necessarily reflect those of CCICED.