Global Tipping Points 2026: Finance and Governance

Erik, thank you very much.

Thank you.

you.There's a lot of interesting concepts that Eric brought up there, Jan, a lot of really good examples of people he's worked with or seen in practice, and I really liked the idea of critical infrastructure and how nature can be that and is that for the sustainability of life on Earth.

And therefore, if you don't have nature, you don't have life on Earth.

Absolutely.

And I also liked, um, his distinction, but joining together of natural capital as it pertains to countries and natural capital as it pertains to corporate actions, and making sure that those two things work well together.

And he said very clearly, the public side matters, the setting of the rules, setting of the regime, the expectations, all of those aspects really then help businesses to be good stewards of assets as well.

But without that, you're kind of, you know, you're not...

It's unfair maybe in some ways to put all of that on a single company.

So it's actually those two things operating in harmony that's the key.

And another guest who recognizes the key importance of business in the whole tipping points conversation, and that you can't have success from governance, from policy, from anything like that if you don't actually have the businesses on side operating within it.

Whether that be there's legislation that businesses actually obey rather than ignore, or whether that be building policy and legislation together with business in order to make sure it's more successful and practicable than it would be otherwise.

The other thing he said, and this again is a, a feature in all economies, but maybe given his time in China, more strongly in China, is that some companies are state-owned, in which case you've got the potential for those two, uh, sets of incentives to be aligned together.

Although it's not straightforward that that would be the case, but, but there is state-owned companies, which are a significant part of many people's economies.

Mm-hmm.

And another person who brought up, unprompted, the current situation we have here in Kuala Lumpur with the air quality and everything, and as you said, compared it to when he used to live in Beijing, and that used to be a big thing in Beijing, but the Chinese have done a lot of work towards cleaning the air in their cities.

I've, I've not been to Beijing, so I don't know how successful it's been, but it's certainly something that they have focused on and done, and that's a, an example of governance and policy being applied somewhere.

And as we say at the minute, being out here in Kuala Lumpur, uh, an update from the last time we mentioned the actual situation, today the sun is shining, but even looking 100 yards away, you can see a haze between you and what a building 100 yards away, and that's not normal.

Yeah.

Not unless, you know, it's 78 degrees Celsius and the haze is just there because the whole ground is burning.

[laughs]

And it's certainly not like that.

And the other thing I really liked about his examples, and this is why it's, uh, really important to, to come to, um, Asia and to actually have the conversations here, is that he talked about some work in Indonesia, work in Inner Mongolia, and both in the conference itself when people are drawing out examples, it's regional examples.

Now, of course, this region is not invisible to us who spend most of our time, uh, within, you know, Europe or elsewhere in the world outside of Asia Pacific region, but it's really inspiring to hear those stories from this region where action's being taken, outcomes are being attained, and people, uh, you know, have better livelihoods and better s- health and social outcomes alongside addressing climate and nature risks.

Indeed.