- Moderators: Ben Chu and Lizzy Burden
- Session One – Green Dealing
While the original New Deal was famously experimental in nature – with the Roosevelt administration trying everything, keeping what worked, and abandoning what didn’t – today’s proposed Green Deals have already been fully mapped out.- 9:00AM – Opening Remarks: Werner Hoyer, President of the European Investment Bank
- 9:05AM – Panel Discussion and Q&A with international media
- Carlos Lopes, former Executive Secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Africa
- Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland, Chair of The Elders
- Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel laureate economist
- Carlos Lopes, former Executive Secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Africa
- 10:10AM – Break
- Session Two – The Return(s) of Nature
While the COVID-19 crisis has highlighted one of the major threats posed by nature, achieving widespread buy-in for biodiversity efforts demands that policymakers also recognize the far-reaching benefits natural systems offer.- 10:30AM – Opening Remarks: Juan Manuel Santos, former President of Colombia (2010-18), Nobel Peace laureate, Member of The Elders
- 10:35AM – Panel Discussion and Q&A with international media
- Christiana Figueres, former Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, co-founder of Global Optimism Ltd
- Anne Larigauderie, Executive Secretary of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services
- Jennifer Morris, CEO of the Nature Conservancy
- Johan Rockström, Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact
- 9/16-9/17
- 9:00 AM EDT
- Online
- 24 Speakers
The Green Recovery WATCH NOW
Before COVID-19 arrived on the scene, the world had been slowly awakening from its environmental complacency. Multinationals were voicing commitments to new, more environmentally conscious forms of corporate governance. Youth activists had mobilized a global climate movement of unprecedented scale. The European Commission had unveiled plans for a European Green Deal, following proposals in the US for a Green New Deal to transform the world’s largest economy. Since then, most major economies have suffered deep contractions, forcing central banks and fiscal authorities to pull out all of the stops in responding.
The pandemic has brutally reminded even the rich world that humanity has not conquered nature. By upending markets, work arrangements, supply chains, and public perceptions of risk, it has permanently changed the world in countless ways. To focus on what comes next, Project Syndicate is convening a wide range of experts for a series of in-depth discussions on the path to a green recovery, with an emphasis on biodiversity, energy, public investments, and financial and corporate governance.
The recovery will bring far-reaching opportunities to accelerate the transition to renewable energies, reorient business and finance toward sustainable development, and reconsider our relationship with nature. But it will also open a window for populists, nationalists, and others to exploit public anxieties and pursue zero-sum politics. The Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change has warned that averting the worst-case climate scenario will depend entirely on the actions taken (or not taken) in the 2020s. The stakes could not be higher. How do we proceed from here?
The Green Recovery is a live virtual event that is taking place September 16-17, 2020. You can find the agenda and registration form below.

Sustainability Special Edition
The Green Recovery brings together leading voices from all of the domains involved in combating climate change.