Christine Loh

Christine Loh has spent more than three decades at the fault lines of power, policy and principle in Hong Kong and China. Trained as a lawyer, seasoned as a commodities trader, elected as a legislator, appointed as a government minister, and trusted as a board director and academic, she has moved fluently between markets and politics.

Loh is not an environmentalist in the abstract. She is a policy pragmatist. As Under Secretary for the Environment in the Hong Kong SAR Government (2012–2017), she helped drive one of the city’s most significant clean air turnarounds in decades. By putting public health at the centre of the debate and grounding decisions in hard data, she led measures that cut roadside pollution by up to 50% at key monitoring points. Christine Loh pushed through reforms on vehicle emissions and shipping fuel standards, influencing not only Hong Kong but policy adoption across southern China.

As former Member of the Legislative Council, Loh piloted the landmark Protection of the Harbour Ordinance, halting large-scale land reclamation. She founded Civic Exchange, an independent public policy think tank that produced more than 200 research reports on air quality, urban design, conservation and wellbeing. She has served on corporate boards, advised on non-market risk at UCLA Anderson, and worked closely with mainland authorities on China’s “ecological civilisation” strategy. Few figures understand as clearly how environmental risk, political reality and economic incentives intersect.

Today, as Chief Development Strategist at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and Asia Society Scholar in Residence, Christine Loh focuses on the bigger picture: China’s climate ambitions, regional energy transitions, sustainable finance, and the geopolitics of decarbonisation. She speaks with unusual authority on how China thinks and operates, as someone who has engaged directly with policymakers, regulators and business leaders for decades.

As a speaker, Loh offers insight into how policy is made, how systems change, and how leaders can navigate the environmental and political realities shaping Asia’s future.