Hong Kong will host its first forum at the United Nations climate talks to promote the city as a green and sustainable financial centre. The event will be co-hosted by the Financial Services Development Council and Friends of the Earth at the upcoming Cop-28 summit in Dubai, which begins on Thursday.

"We will co-host a forum at the China Corner side event of COP28," said Plato Yip the chairman of Friends of the Earth in Hong Kong. "This marks a significant and meaningful milestone for our Hong Kong-based NGO Friends of the Earth as it is our first opportunity to deliver our message directly."

Speaking on RTHK's Hong Kong Today programme, Yip said the NGO's role was to act as a bridge between civil society and government representatives. He said they be would be highlighting Hong Kong's ability to trade carbon credits, an off-set mechanism which allows companies to sell-on independently verified voluntary reductions in carbon emissions that they have made.

Yip said these carbon credits could be moved onto a blockchain system and traded on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

"Recognising these digital assets and then having the third-party verification on chain; and then having the exchange, for example the Hong Kong Stock Exchange or other exchanges - carbon exchanges - migrate these digitised carbon credits for easier transaction at a lower cost and with more security."

Yip also brushed off criticism that the forum was being held in the United Arab Emirates, a major exporter of petroleum products.

"There are always these kinds of sceptical reports about the role the Middle East can play," he said. "I have been working in the Middle East for the past two years. I went to Saudi Arabia, the UAE, to Qatar, and to Kuwait. And actually, in my own observation I found that these countries - oil states, if you like - are trying to do this transition."

Yip said there were strategic plans, like in Saudi Arabia, which was building a number of new cities like the Neom mega city, which was designed to be carbon neutral. He said the Middle East wanted to move into areas such as green technologies, and they had the political will and finances to do so.