The Allen & Gledhill Law and Sustainable Finance Distinguished Lecture “Law and Sustainable Finance – More Regulation or Better Relationships?” by Professor Megan Bowman

From left to right: Professor Ernest Lim, Vice-Dean (Faculty Development), NUS Law, Associate Professor Jolene Lin, Director (APCEL), Professor Megan Bowman (KCL) and Ms Kang Yanyi, Partner, Allen & Gledhill LLP

On 16 October 2024, Professor Megan Bowman delivered the Allen & Gledhill Law and Sustainable Finance Distinguished Lecture, “Law and Sustainable Finance – More Regulation or Better Relationships?” at the Westin Singapore. This lecture was proudly organized by the Asia-Pacific Centre for Environmental Law (APCEL) and the EW Barker Centre for Law & Business (EWBCLB) at NUS Law, with the support of the Commonwealth Climate and Law Initiative (CCLI). Professor Bowman is Professor of Law at King’s College London and the founding Director of the King’s Centre for Climate Law and Governance. Her expertise focuses on empirical and transnational analyses of financial regulation and company law in the context of climate change and planetary sustainability. Her award-winning research has been cited in the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC 2022) and the UN High-Level Climate Champions’ Pivot Point regulatory report (2022). Over 100 academics and legal practitioners participated in this event that was generously sponsored by Allen & Gledhill LLP. Professor Ernest Lim, Vice Dean (Faculty Development) at NUS Law gave the welcome address.

In her lecture, Prof Bowman discussed the interrelationship and interdependence between financial stability and the environment, with a particular focus on the existential threat of climate change. Referring to the Paris Agreement, the 2022 Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and former Bank of England governor Mark Carney’s seminal 2015 speech on climate change and financial stability titled “Breaking the tragedy of the horizon”, Prof Bowman argued that ultimately, all finance must become sustainable, with no real dichotomy between mainstream finance and “green finance”. She outlined a “legal analytical framework for climate finance” comprising financial mechanisms and “facilitative modalities”, in order to shine a light on the emerging field of climate finance law and regulation. Prof Bowman also interspersed her lecture with personal anecdotes about climate change and extreme weather events, and ended by quoting from Ugandan climate activist Vanessa Nakate’s rousing speech at COP26 in Glasgow.

The event ended with a lively Q&A session moderated by Dr Jolene Lin (Associate Professor, NUS Law), where questions ranged from the importance of focusing on biodiversity and pollution in addition to climate change, the risk of regulatory fatigue, and the impact of climate litigation on sustainable finance.