(Bloomberg) -- Former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson said China’s tariffs on imports of clean technologies and services need to be reduced or eliminated as part of the global effort to reach climate goals.

“There’s a huge market,” Paulson said Tuesday in a Bloomberg Television interview as part of the COP26 summit in Glasgow, Scotland. “The trick is for us to not become competitors.”

What China commits to do by 2050 “makes very little difference,” Paulson said. The goal is to “look at how both countries can work together to help China significantly reduce their carbon emissions over the next 10 years.”

Paulson in 2011 founded the Paulson Institute, a think-tank that focuses on U.S.-China relations and sustainability issues. He’s the executive chairman of the TPG Rise Climate fund, which raised $5.4 billion earlier this year to invest in clean energy, green agriculture and other climate solutions. 

Prior to his time at the Department of Treasury under President George W. Bush, Paulson was the chief executive officer of Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

Paulson also said:

  • Rich governments must give the necessary tools to the private sector for low-carbon transformation
  • The private sector is moving much faster than the public sector on climate goals
  • The private sector will have to fund much of the decarbonization effort
  • The private sector’s annual climate bill will be $4 trillion to $6 trillion of capital

 

 

 

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