Ma Jun is the director and founder of the Beijing-based NGO, the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs (IPE), which leads a campaign for China’s environmental transparency through initiatives such as the Blue Map app. Ma was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine in 2006 and worked for the South China Morning Post from 1993 to 2000. This interview first appeared in SCMP Plus.
Incoming US president Donald Trump is expected to withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement. What are the implications for the global climate change response and the United Nations Climate Change Conference (Cop)?
It is another setback to global climate governance because international cooperation is so important and the United States is the second-largest emitter of greenhouse gases after China.
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Different countries have to submit their new nationally determined contributions (NDCs) to the United Nations by February. [NDCs are greenhouse reduction plans by individual countries under the Paris Agreement.] We can expect the US to withdraw from the Paris Agreement again. Whether it will submit NDCs before the second Trump presidency is still unclear, but even if it does the delivery cannot be assured. Also, since the United States is a highly influential leader in many multilateral governance mechanisms, its withdrawal may also affect the integration of global climate initiatives in those mechanisms.
The cooperation between China and the United States at the national and federal levels, and the earlier agreements reached by the two countries such as that reached during the Sunnylands summit last year, may also be affected.
That means China-US cooperation at the subnational level or among the private sectors, like the cooperation between California and China, and the cooperation to promote green and low carbon supply chains by US and Chinese companies, will become more important.
You are in Baku attending Cop29 now. How is sentiment now that the US withdrawal under Trump looms large?
People are worried when they talk about president-elect Trump because he has long cast doubt on the science behind climate change. But the participants are still actively finding their ways to promote global climate governance because there is a sense of urgency and there is a willingness among participants even though the US may withdraw. I have seen more positive than pessimistic sentiment.
In the China pavilion, there are many visitors from different countries, and most people look upbeat in their mood.
The situation is different from eight years ago when Trump withdrew from the Paris Agreement for the first time. At that time it was more pessimistic and people thought it could undermine global climate actions.
The difference is because more people are aware that low carbon transformation may bring green economic growth. Take China as an example, even though the real estate industries have lost their steam, the massive growth of renewable energy-related industries, such as solar panels, wind turbines, electric vehicles and their batteries, as well as high-speed trains have contributed to 40 per cent of the GDP growth in China.
People increasingly see that green transformation represents the future and if the United States goes back to fossil fuel, such as oil and gas, and petrol vehicles, that would mean the United States is relinquishing its leadership in the renewable energy industry and it may lose its edge in these areas. I don’t think it benefits the US in the long run.
People have called Cop29 a finance Cop. What are the challenges to come up with an agreement for climate financing?
I think it is still possible to reach some sort of agreement and build a framework because there is willingness to help developing countries to respond to climate change and cope with losses.
However, it is very difficult to reach an ambitious agreement and to deliver the goals because in the last cycle developed countries committed to mobilise US$100 billion annually in climate finance by 2020. But the target was only met in 2022.
This time the goal is very high and there are more difficulties and complex issues involved, as well as the vested interests from many parties and countries. We have to be aware of the complexity.
What are the biggest concerns about China’s role in Cop29? There have been many discussions about whether China should contribute more financially. What is your view?
China has disclosed for the first time at Cop29 that it has provided and mobilised over 177 billion yuan (US$24.5 billion) in project funding to support other developing countries address climate change since 2016. China can be expected to continue to provide and expand its financial support to developing countries and vulnerable countries.
It also supports negotiation on the new mechanism in this Cop called quantified goals on climate finance, but it stresses the importance of sticking with the principle of the common but differentiated responsibilities of developed and developing countries.
China set the target for carbon peak and neutrality and it is pushing closer to the peak goal. This will be the major contribution that China can make, if China can reach the target and bend the curve faster.
Can China reach peak carbon emissions before 2030, as it has pledged?
China is fully determined to achieve its carbon peak before 2030, and China has been making enormous efforts to expand renewable energy capacity.
Most observers think that China will be able to achieve peak carbon emissions despite challenges in transition. Now the question is about how much faster, how much more quickly can China achieve that.
There are many different forecasts. It’s complicated because it depends on a whole variety of different factors and a major part of that is closely linked with not just the energy transition, but the economic status, and particularly [in] energy intensive sectors there are some uncertainties.
For example, the real estate market is not in very good shape at this moment. But there are policies created to try to boost the market. So it’s still hard to make a forecast. That’s why I think the 15th five-year-plan is crucial.
We are getting close to the end of the 14th five-year -plan. In the 15th five-year-plan, we are getting closer to the carbon peak deadline. So it is very important to set clearer targets and try to get more quantifiable, not just on the energy intensity and carbon intensity targets but also on the absolute emission volume target.
And then the targets should be drilled down to region by region and sector by sector. I think having a target based on massive monitoring and measuring is one of the reasons China was able to achieve air pollution control rapidly.
When Chinese President Xi Jinping arrived for a state visit in Brazil on November 19, campaigners urged China to make sure its companies do not use suppliers that contribute to Amazon deforestation as China is the biggest importer of meat and soybeans from Brazil. Do you think that is something China is willing to do?
China is making a policy to push for major corporations to adopt ESG [environmental, social and governance] policies.
At this moment, China has expressed willingness to align with the ISSB [International Sustainability Standards Board] standard on ESG disclosure by some of the major listed companies. The stock market has also created rules to require some of the leading companies to make those ESG disclosures.
We [at IPE] have been working on the green supply chain for more than 10 years, and in October we published our new annual green supply chain index report based on the assessment of some 780 global and local companies.
We find an increasing number of them have created policies on biodiversity conservation, which is quite positive. But in the meantime, many companies lack the tools to truly implement [them] in their supply chain management.
It is a challenge not just in China, but globally. The big companies and financial institutions find it challenging to try to implement a biodiversity policy through their value chain, because it’s far more complicated and there’s much less information and data available.
We happen to be tracking some of the innovative solutions developed in China over the past 10 years. China has been working on the so-called red line zones and function zone mechanism.
[Under this mechanism], China’s territory has been divided into 44,000 different zones based on the baseline research and with different functions, priorities and even a list of industrial sectors allowed or prohibited to be invested in different zones.
And we put them on a digital map and created a service. Now, some of the major banks have already tapped into that. So I hope that all this eventually will contribute to the global solutions to help integrate biodiversity conservation into the supply chain and finance activities.
During your time at the Post, you conducted extensive research on water pollution in Chinese rivers. There are many approaches for environmental NGOs. What inspired you to launch a database, the Blue Map, to monitor pollution?
My time at SCMP afforded me [the chance] to travel to different parts of China. I was struck by the environmental damage – particularly water pollution, shortages and ecosystem destruction – and put it into the book China’s Water Crisis in 1999.
Years of research made me understand how hard it is to control pollution. With decades of weak enforcement, the cost of violations used to be much lower than the cost of compliance. Many companies chose to cut corners as it made them more competitive in the market. Behind the weak enforcement is often the intervention by governors or mayors directed by a development view that puts GDP growth ahead of environmental protection.
I shared with many NGO colleagues the importance of involving the public extensively to address issues of such a magnitude and complexity. But I came to believe through my research that the prerequisite for any in-depth and meaningful participation is access to information.
In 2006, I founded IPE, an organisation focused on environmental transparency and stakeholder participation. The first project we did was to develop a China Water Pollution Map, the predecessor of the Blue Map database.
One of the features of the Blue Map is monitoring the supply chain, the big brands, and there is a lot of data there. How do you compare the green compliance of multinationals, state enterprises and private enterprises in mainland China now?
China has served as the largest factory of the world for decades. But the waste got dumped in our backyard, contaminating the water, air, soil and coastal seas.
To address the pollution impact of the global supply chain, IPE launched the Green Choice Initiative with 20 local NGOs in 2007 and then began to engage with large multinationals, particularly those that made open commitments, not only on responsible sourcing.
Yet when we first tried to engage with them, many in China did not know who was polluting, so they would buy from the cheapest. But I told them I had a map that could help them figure out who is polluting and who’s not; who’s a bad emitter and who’s not.
And so, through the records compiled and the on-site investigations with our partners, we came up with investigative reports on supply chain impacts that were picked up by the media in China and abroad. One by one these brands started comparing a list of suppliers with our list of violators and identified those with compliance issues and urged them to change the behaviour or lose the contracts.
Today, progress in environmental monitoring and information disclosure has enabled platforms like the IPE’s Blue Map to track the performance of 16 million companies operating in China. Using the Dynamic Environmental Performance Assessment (DEPA) tool, millions of corporations are graded using a colour-coded system and visualised on electronic maps.
Such granular and dynamic data becomes a unique resource for more efficient green supply chain and responsible investment management.
Some of the largest multinationals – and, increasingly, local companies – have incorporated the use of Blue Map data into their sourcing standards. With digital solutions that allow managers to receive push notifications in their inboxes or on their mobile phones, tens of thousands of suppliers have been motivated to address their violations and/or measure and disclose their emissions.
The data is also used extensively in green finance. In the past three years, major banks in China, including some of the largest state-owned banks, tapped into the Blue Map data on 2.6 million corporations as part of their green banking due diligence.
In recent years, we have seen a lot of restrictions and new regulations on NGOs. But at the same time, IPE, the Blue Map and all these initiatives have received great government support. So what is the role of NGOs in environmental protection? How are these new regulations and restrictions affecting IPE?
There are tighter regulatory requirements issues such as social media, data security and cooperation with foreign NGOs. As an organisation that focuses on data and participation and tries to address regional and global environmental and climate challenges, we must carefully review and follow the new rules.
We continue to find space for NGOs to work on environmental protection – an issue [backed by broad] social consensus. But we need to pivot to adapt to changing contexts. When we were set up 18 years ago, with weak enforcement, we in some way played the role of an independent watchdog.
Today the situation has changed dramatically, with the government enforcement being much tightened and emitters motivated to improve performance. We are trying to tap into the big data we compiled to develop cost-efficient digital solutions.
In the meantime, the global urgency to deal with climate change, biodiversity losses and new pollutants – including plastics – create emerging demand from NGOs working in China and the Global South.
To extend the data infrastructure from environment to climate, we have launched the Blue Map for Zero Carbon, collecting regional carbon and energy data and corporate-level carbon emission data.
The landmark regulations by the Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE) put 83,000 large emitters on the list with requirements to disclose a broad range of environmental data, including carbon data by some key enterprises.
In response to Chinese government requirements of ESG reporting and emerging global reporting schemes such as [the ISSB], three stock exchanges – Shanghai, Shenzhen and Beijing – officially released “Guidelines on Sustainability Reporting of Listed Companies (trial)” in April 2024, a move hailed by many as a “defining moment”.
However, there still remains a significant gap in China, and arguably in most parts of the world, in current disclosure standards for non-listed enterprises, especially small and medium-sized enterprises, that generate Scope 3 carbon emissions that need to be addressed.
Encouragingly, the gap has aroused attention by the regulators, and IPE is assisting institutions in charge [of] formulating general guidelines for corporate carbon disclosure.
We believe that solid environmental and carbon data will enable dynamic performance assessments that are key to create accountability and incentives.
Since the signing of the Paris Agreement, we have extended our supply chain assessments to climate actions. After China made its carbon peak and neutrality commitment, we further upgraded the index into the Corporate Climate Action Index and expanded the coverage to 742 brands and 880 listed companies.
We are trying to help extend our data infrastructure from the environment to climate, plastic and biodiversity.
[We are working] to build environmental data infrastructure, and based on that, to create data-driven assessment, to create corporate accountability and add incentives – market-based incentives.
And last, but not least, our work has also got more attention from overseas.
We have NGO partners, or even government agencies from Southeast Asia and South Asia that approach us and want to learn about how China tries to deal with air and water pollution and manage the supply chain.
And we have an NGO from Africa expressing their interest in building the African version of the Blue Map to track the portfolio of international mineral mining and all these activities going on there.
I think there’s a real opportunity for us to try to contribute to a more regional or even global impact environment and climate data infrastructure that will help the Global South tackle this new round of relocation, redistribution manufacturing, and to cope with their own rising challenges, like air pollution.
Do you face any kind of threats or pressure from the local governments or the polluters now, even with the support of public opinion?
Every now and then we still encounter pushback from companies as the violation and penalty fine records we have presented have topped 3.2 million.
But in comparison, those early years were much tougher, with so much pressure coming from some powerful companies and their local contacts. At certain points, we were not quite sure whether we could continue our operation the next day.
In hindsight, some of the decisions we made, such as to start with official monitoring data and to develop a path towards a solution for the violators, helped us navigate through some tough waters.
The very fact that the data disclosure and applications by the Blue Map and others help bring the stakeholders together and rally against pollution boosts confidence in further expansion of environmental transparency.
That’s a very good point. A lot of time people think that disclosure of information or transparency may lead to instability. But in this case, it shows that transparency and data disclosure actually help governance. It is just the opposite of what people have believed for years.
Yes. Let me give you an example about how one major province began to collaborate with us.
When we first launched our Blue Map app, there were many companies in China that exceeded emissions standards. Among them, many were from Shandong province, one of the largest industrial bases in China.
One day, we got a call for a meeting with the head of the Shandong EPB, the provincial environmental protection bureau. As I took the train, I felt a little nervous as we put many “red dot” factories on our map in the province. I thought I would again be pressured to remove some of the information from our app, as it had happened before.
But this official opened his remarks by saying: “Look, there are 100 million people in our province, and we burn 400 million tonnes of coal. Now I’m asked to clean up the PM2.5, and I don’t think I can deliver without the understanding and support of the people.”
He said the Blue Map app could actually be of help because it’s based on science and monitoring data. Eventually the provincial, municipal and county agencies in Shandong all set up Weibo accounts – those are Twitter-like accounts, before Twitter was changed to X.
Through these accounts, they can follow and track each petition and complaints posted by our Blue Map users and then urge major emitters to change behaviour.
In one of these cases, a listed steel plant used to breach the emission standards repeatedly. But the reports filed by our app users and NGOs got the environmental agency in Jinan, the provincial capital, to weigh in and require this company to clean up.
Eventually, the steel plant spent more than US$1 billion to make a deep cut in its air emissions. Efforts like this contributed to the significant improvement of air quality – not only in the city but the vast airshed.
So the public opinion and the lobbying by NGOs did have an impact on more disclosure from the government?
Yes. From 2014, thousands upon thousands of factories, power plants and waste water treatment facilities were required to give people the monitoring data every hour or every two hours – the first of its kind in the world. Each province set up a platform to carry out disclosures.
To help people access and interpret the monitoring data, we launched the Blue Map app, compiling data from nearly 30 platforms and locating major emitters on the digital map one by one, with the help from local NGO partners and app users.
We visualised the monitoring data, and when those who violated the emission standards would turn red on our map, many residents chose to share it on social media, tagging in official social media accounts, making them so-called micro-reporting.
It helped change the dynamic in some key regions. Thousands of the largest coal power, steel, cement and chemical and petrochemical companies, many of them state-owned enterprises, bowed to the public pressure and openly addressed violations for the first time.
More from South China Morning Post:
- UN chief urges G20 ‘leadership’ on stalled climate talks
- Is China ready to lead the way on fighting climate change after Donald Trump’s return?
- World’s most polluting cities revealed at Cop29 as frustration grows at fossil fuels
- UN urged to ban Cop climate talks in pro-fossil fuel countries
- Cop29: Can China fill the climate void left by Trump’s return to ‘Drill, baby, drill’?
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