Climate Action and Green Competitiveness

• November 19, 2015 at 5:30 pm - 7:00 pm
• IFC Auditorium and IFC Room L101, 2121 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Washington, DC 20433, USA

Climate change has gone from If to When to Now. In the run up to the Conference of the Parties (COP) 21 in Paris, there is a growing urgency and implementation of bold new actions at international and local levels.

Climate change — and the actions to address climate change — will have profound consequences for competitiveness at the national, sector and firm levels. Rapidly expanding sectors marked by technological transformation create massive new opportunities for new jobs and investment. At the same time, climate impacts on supply chains, resource costs and operating reliability force industry to operate under dramatically different circumstances that can change relative competitive positioning.

On November 19, 2015, the World Bank Group’s first Green Competitiveness event will gather private sector, governments and academia to examine more closely the intersection of climate change and competitiveness. Sitra, the Finnish Innovation Fund, will also release a flagship report developed jointly with international partners on the potential to scale low- carbon solutions across borders.

Speakers will include:

Anabel Gonzalez
Senior Director, Global Practice on Trade and Competitiveness
World Bank Group

Rachel Kyte
Vice President and Special Envoy for Climate Change
World Bank Group

Andrew Steer
President and CEO
World Resources Institute

Kirsti Kauppi
Ambassador of Finland to the United States

Hakan Bulgurlu
CEO
Arçelik

Mari Pantsar
Director, Resource-wise and carbon-neutral society
Sitra