Gallagher in Climate Wire on Belt and Road Initiative
Kevin Gallagher, Director of the Global Development Policy (GDP) Center and Professor of Global Development Policy at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies, was quoted in a recent article on how China’s Belt and Road Initiative is transforming into a vehicle for a green energy transition.
Gallagher was quoted in an April 25, 2019 article in Climate Wire entitled “Belt and Road Initiative To Get Green Makeover.”
From the text of the article:
Energy-sector loans probably account for more than half of overall BRI loans, said Kevin Gallagher, a Boston University professor who collaborated on the report.
“As they move into this summit, they really sort of need to reset, and not just because of what the rest of the world thinks on one level, but because it will affect their balance sheet,” said Gallagher, who launched an interactivedata seton the topic yesterday.
“I don’t think anyone thinks this thing is going to go away,” he said. “It’s the presidential pet project of one of the most powerful presidents in history. And it is having a big impact on economic growth — it’s just 20th-century growth, not 21st-century growth.”
The initiative could instead be deployed to support the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals and to finance countries’ national contributions to the Paris Agreement — which Gallagher said carried an implicit combined price tag of $1 trillion for infrastructure investment.
“And if they can do that, it will go down in history as the greatest regional integration and sustainable development program of all time,” he said.
Gallagher serves on the United Nations’ Committee for Development Policy and co-chairs the T-20 Task Force on International Financial Architecture at the G-20. He previously served on the investment sub-committee of the Advisory Committee on International Economic Policy at the US Department of State and on the National Advisory Committee at the Environmental Protection Agency. Gallagher has been a visiting or adjunct professor at the Paul Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University; El Colegio de Mexico in Mexico; Tsinghua University in China, and the Center for State and Society in Argentina. @KevinPGallagher