Business Diplomacy Today

Climate Change mitigation is discussed mainly on a political level between countries, both in multilateral fora such as the COP (Conferences of Parties), the G20, or bilaterally. Our guest Dhanasree Jayaram is an expert in these negotiations. She talks with Matthias Catón about different approaches to climate change in developed and developing countries.

Developing and emerging economies have long argued that developed countries are historically responsible for past emissions. While this argument still holds, many of those countries also see opportunities. China focuses on green technology and is a world leader in producing solar panels. India has high hopes for green hydrogen. Furthermore, at least China’s per capita CO2 emissions are reaching the levels of the European Union, which means that it will have to accept other measurement standards in the future.

They also address the role of companies. More and more companies take action themselves, for example, by setting net-zero targets. According to Dr. Jayaram, small and medium-sized companies (SMEs) and startups may be better suited to make necessary changes to their business model, as they are nimbler and have less legacy. Unlike larger companies, however, they often lack the knowledge and skills.

Dr. Dhanasree Jayaram is a Research Fellow at Centre Marc Bloch (CMB) and Guest Researcher at Freie Universität Berlin. She is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Geopolitics and International Relations and Co-coordinator of the Centre for Climate Studies at Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE) in Karnataka, India. She is also an Earth System Governance Research Fellow and a member of the Climate Security Expert Network and the Planet Politics Institute.

She holds a Ph.D. in Geopolitics and International Relations from MAHE. She pursued a visiting fellowship at Leiden University, the Netherlands, and a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland. Her primary fields of interest include climate politics and diplomacy, environmental security and military, regional environmental policy in Asia, and environmental peacebuilding.

In this episode, Matthias Catón speaks with Julia Grauvogel, Senior Research Fellow at the German Institute for Global and Area Studies (GIGA). They discuss the implications of economic sanctions and talk about different types of sanctions and the ways to measure their effects on the “target” (the country receiving the sanctions) and the “sender” (the country imposing the sanctions).

Matthias and Julia discuss why countries apply sanctions frequently and how effective they are, depending on the type and context of the application. Julia describes different concrete sanction regimes, such as during Apartheid in South Africa and the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine. She also talks about the economic clout that the United States and other Western countries have and how a continued de-dollarisation of the world economy might affect it. Julia provides her prediction on the future of sanctions as a foreign policy tool.

Dr. Julia Grauvogel is a senior research fellow at the German Institute for Global and Area Studies (GIGA) and spokesperson of the research team “Interventions and Security”. She leads the research project “Sanctions Termination in Times of Crises: Unpacking the Role of External Shocks” funded by the German Research Foundation.

Her work on international sanctions and authoritarian rule has appeared in leading journals such as International Studies Quarterly and the Journal of Peace Research. Her commentary has been featured in taz, NZZ, and tagesschau24, among other outlets.

In this episode, Dr. Matthias Catón interviews Sujan Chinoy, the Director General of the Indian think tank IDSA. The former Ambassador is an expert in Indo-China relations. They discuss the current political situation and the ongoing border conflict between the two countries, which has been going on for decades but is again tense since 2020. Despite the political and military tensions, trade between the two countries has increased over the past years.

They talk about attempts to decouple supply chains partially from China to make them less dependent on a country whose geopolitical ambitions may make cooperation more difficult in the future. Ambassador Chinoy sees excellent potential for India to benefit from this diversification, not least because of the demographic advantage of a young population.

Looking into the future, Chinoy believes that China has a long way to go to catch up to the United States economically and militarily. While he recognizes the potential of increasing global conflicts, he does not believe we will see a new bipolar world. Today’s complexities and interdependencies are too deep for such a simplistic division.

Sujan Chinoy has been the Director General of the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, New Delhi, since January 2019. A career diplomat from 1981-2018, he was India’s Ambassador to Japan and Mexico and High Commissioner of India to Belize and the Republic of the Marshall Islands.

A specialist with over two decades of experience in China and East Asia, he headed the India-China Expert Group of Diplomatic & Military Officials dealing with boundary disputes and confidence-building measures. During his Foreign Service career, he served in Hong Kong and Beijing, and as Consul General in Shanghai. He also served as the Consul General of India in Sydney.

He was India’s Representative to the First Committee at the UN dealing with disarmament and international security and later the Deputy Head of Mission at the Indian Embassy in Riyadh. On deputation to India’s National Security Council Secretariat for four years, he anchored national security policy issues and strategic dialogues with counterparts worldwide.

He has rich experience in dealing with India’s extended neighborhood, terrorism and extremism, Indo-Pacific and maritime security, defense reforms and modernization, infrastructure, and connectivity. He has spearheaded several studies for the Indian government on external and internal national security issues. He contributes extensively to newspapers and journals, besides lecturing widely in India and worldwide. He is also the Indian Chair of the Think20 process during India’s Presidency of the G20.

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Nicolas Schwank is an expert in political risk. His company monitors and analyzes different risks and briefs business clients. Our host Matthias Catón and Nico (who met when they both studied and worked at the University of Heidelberg), discuss different political risks that can affect business and how business leaders can ensure that they stay on top of things.

Dr. Nicolas Schwank studied political science, medieval and modern history, and public law in Heidelberg and Barcelona. He earned his doctorate in Heidelberg. For several years Nico directed the Heidelberg Institute for International Conflict Research (HIIK).

In this capacity was the editor of the Conflict Barometer, an annual report on the number and development of violent and non-violent political conflicts worldwide. After several research projects at the university in the field of early conflict detection, he founded CONIAS Risk Intelligence in 2015, a consulting firm that primarily informs companies about political risks on a digital basis or provides corresponding key figures. Since the end of 2019, CONIAS is part of Michael Bauer International.

Nico continuously monitors the development of more than 1,000 active political conflicts worldwide with his team. Among the most important clients are DAX corporations from the automotive and (re)insurance sectors. In the fall of 2022, the CONIAS Academy launched a training program for companies to qualify employees from purchasing, controlling, and management to become “Political Risk Managers”.

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Condoleezza Rice and Amy B. Zegart 2018: Political Risk: How Businesses and Organizations Can Anticipate Global Insecurity

The host Matthias Catón and his guest Karsten Löffler talk about ESG Taxonomies. ESG stands for “Environmental, Social, and Governance” and essentially means how companies “behave” well as corporate citizens. Taxonomies measure this. The best known is the EU Taxonomy, but as we learn, it is by no means the only one in force or being considered worldwide.

Karsten explains that ESG taxonomies cannot judge “good” or “bad” behavior. They are merely instruments for transparency, particularly for financial investors and banks. They have become mandatory for more and more companies.

While large corporations are mostly well prepared with in-house teams taking care of the necessary steps, many small and medium-sized companies (SMEs) still don’t know what is coming or what they need to do. However, Karsten reassures SMEs. Setting up an ESG Taxonomy framework for a company is less complicated than it sounds and does not necessarily require expensive consultants. Furthermore, once it is set up, the ongoing work is manageable.

Matthias and Karsten also discuss the current geopolitical situation concerning the war in Ukraine and whether it might make sense to postpone the energy transformation of our societies in light of recent events.

Karsten Löffler heads the FS-UNEP Collaborating Centre for Climate & Sustainable Energy Finance. Previously working for Allianz Group, he was Managing Director of Allianz Climate Solutions, the Group’s climate innovation hub.

Karsten Löffler is a Certified International Investment Analyst (CIIA) and managing director of the Green and Sustainable Finance Cluster Germany (GSFCG).

He used to represent the GSFCG in the EU Commission’s Technical Expert Group (TEG) on Sustainable Finance, where he actively shaped the EU Taxonomy by applying his extensive experience in renewable energy finance. In October 2020, he became a member of the Commission’s newly established Platform on Sustainable Finance. Furthermore, Karsten chaired the Sustainable Finance Committee of the Federal Government. One of the tasks was to develop recommendations for a Sustainable Finance strategy for Germany.

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Karsten Löffler recommends the website of the Network for Greening the Financial System.

Our host Matthias Catón interviews Horst Löchel, a true expert on China. They talk about the prospects for international companies to do business in China today.

What is different from ten years ago? What are the risks, and what are the opportunities? And what are the specific challenges of operating in a country with an authoritarian government? Horst Löchel also weighs in on China’s economic and geopolitical perspectives, including assessing the conflict with Taiwan.

Dr. Horst Löchel is a Professor of Economics and Co-Chairman of the Sino-German Centre at Frankfurt School of Finance & Management. He is also a member of the Board of Directors at the Shanghai International Banking and Finance Institute (SIBFI).

Professor Löchel joined Frankfurt School in 1997 and has held positions of Acting and Deputy Dean. On leave from Frankfurt, he was the founding manager of SIBFI in 2003. He also held the positions of Chairman from 2004 to 2012 and Vice President of the Managing Directors from 2003 to 2009. From 2009 to 2011, he was the Director of the German Centre of Banking and Finance at China Europe International Business School (CEIBS) in Shanghai, where he continued as a visiting professor of economics until 2020.

Before joining Frankfurt School, he was a Professor of Economics and Acting Head of the Banking and Finance Department at the University of Cooperative Education in Berlin, Germany. He studied and got his doctorate in economics at Goethe University in Frankfurt. Löchel teaches and researches in the field of global macroeconomics with a focus on China. He regularly publishes in scientific journals and newspapers and is a sought-after speaker at conferences.

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Horst Löchel recommends the book by Stefan Dercon, Gambling on Development: Why Some Countries Win and Others Lose.

In this episode, our host Matthias Catón interviews Matthias Lüfkens, a veteran social media expert. They talk about using social media as a means of public diplomacy. How do governments and world leaders use it, what should they avoid, and why can it be such a powerful tool?

Of course, they also discuss how business leaders could and should use social media (notably Twitter) to make their voices heard in global affairs.

Matthias Lüfkens is a social media architect at DigiTips, a boutique PR agency advising governments, international organizations, and corporations on the best use of social media. He is the creator of Twiplomacy, a study examining how governments and international organizations use digital platforms.

Previously he was Head of Digital Media at the World Economic Forum, where he designed and implemented the highly successful digital strategy, opening Davos to a global audience on social media. Trained as a journalist, he was a Baltic States correspondent for the Daily Telegraph, Agence France Presse, and Libération. In Vilnius, he founded In Your Pocket, an English language city guide series, Europe’s leading provider of city information.

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