by Jiao Qian
GENEVA, Sept. 10 (Xinhua) -- Amid ongoing geopolitical tensions and intensifying impacts of climate change, Chinese and international businesses should maintain dialogue, exchange solutions and strengthen partnerships to jointly advance the global green transition, said Peter Bakker, president and CEO of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD).
"It is unfortunate that all these geopolitical tensions are rising just at the moment that you see climate change impacts becoming really tough on the planet," Bakker said in a recent interview with Xinhua in Geneva.
He noted that excessive storms and massive heat waves are increasingly affecting people's lives as well as corporate productivity. Against this backdrop, it is critical to continue building platforms that facilitate dialogue among businesses irrespective of geopolitical circumstances, he said.
The upcoming third edition of the Two Lakes Dialogue, to be held in Wuhan in central China's Hubei Province from Sept. 15 to Sept. 17, is such a platform, Bakker said. Business leaders from China and the Western world will come together to discuss how to decarbonize the economy, compare solutions developed by different companies, and explore new business partnerships to accelerate implementation, he added.
The Two Lakes Dialogue, named after the East Lake in Wuhan and Lake Geneva in Switzerland, is an international cooperation platform focusing on green and low-carbon development. The first edition was launched in Wuhan in 2024, followed by the second edition in Montreux, Switzerland, in 2025.
Jointly held by the WBCSD, Hubei Hongtai Group and the Hubei Sub-Council of China Council for the Promotion of International Trade, this year's event will focus on topics including China's green transition, global carbon market connectivity, and industrial decarbonization.
Bakker noted that emissions occur across supply chains rather than in just one country or one factory. Therefore, multinational companies that operate supply chains across borders have an important role to play in addressing emissions across global supply chains.
By bringing Western and Chinese companies together to discuss supply chain emissions and the accounting standards needed to measure them, we can find solutions that serve not just individual countries, but truly scale up global climate action, Bakker said.
On China's green transition, Bakker said China's 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-2030) demonstrates the country's long-term policy stability.
Citing the WBCSD's recently released Business Breakthrough Barometer 2026, which draws on views from hundreds of business executives around the world, he said policy stability is the top priority identified by business leaders in advancing decarbonization and climate action.
"Policy stability and business innovation can help drive solutions to scale," he said.
Bakker said the Plan is moving green-transition solutions from pilot projects toward integration across the economy.
"I think China is developing some of the solutions, but also finds ways to implement those solutions at a scale that happens nowhere else in the world," he noted.
Bakker called on business leaders around the world to tap into the opportunities arising from China's development and to advance the global green transition through stronger cooperation and mutual learning.
The WBCSD was established in 1995 and has more than 200 multinational companies as its members.
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