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Chinese President Xi Jinping speaks via video link at the UN Biodiversity Conference in Kunming in China’s southwestern Yunnan province, on Tuesday. Photo: AFP

COP15: China’s Xi Jinping pledges US$232m for new fund to protect world biodiversity

  • The Kunming Biodiversity Fund will help developing nations better protect their ecology, President Xi tells UN conference
  • Xi also pledged to accelerate solar power development in China, with scale of projects set to surpass India’s entire renewable energy portfolio
Science
China will donate 1.5 billion yuan (US$232.5 million) to set up a new fund to help developing countries protect the variety of plant and animal life in the world, President Xi Jinping has pledged at the United Nations Biodiversity Conference (COP15).
“China will take the lead and contribute 1.5 billion yuan to set up the Kunming Biodiversity Fund to support biodiversity development of developing countries,” Xi told the conference via video link on Tuesday. “China calls for and welcomes all parties to contribute and support strengthening protection of biodiversity.”

Xi also pledged to accelerate the development of wind and solar power in China.

“[We will] step up our efforts in the development of renewable energy, and accelerate the planning of large-scale photovoltaic and wind power projects in [our] deserts and nearby areas,” he said. “Construction for phase one of these projects, with a combined installed capacity of 100 million kilowatts, has begun.”

Xi did not give details of the solar projects, which are bigger in scale than India’s entire renewable energy portfolio.

02:40

China pledges US$232m to world biodiversity conservation at COP15 conference in Kunming

China pledges US$232m to world biodiversity conservation at COP15 conference in Kunming

Xi delivered his remarks at the Leaders’ Summit of the COP15 conference, hosted by China’s southwestern city of Kunming. The conference this year is expected to adopt a joint declaration from the high-level segment of the UN Biodiversity Conference 2020 (Part 1).

The document is expected to emphasise the efforts and commitments of many countries to protect 30 per cent of their land and sea areas through conservation by 2030, according to a draft of the declaration published on the conference website.

Folk artists perform during the opening ceremony of the 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (COP15) in Kunming on October 11. Photo: Xinhua

Xi also announced the official establishment of China’s first batch of national parks, including one in the Tibetan Plateau holding the headwaters of three major Asian rivers, one for giant pandas in the southwestern province of Sichuan, and a third for Siberian tigers and Amur leopards in northwestern China.

“The combined protected area [of these parks] is 230,000 sq km, covering nearly 30 per cent of [China’s] land area,” he said.

Xi also called for making the global environmental governance system “fairer” and “more reasonable”, as well as promoting “real multilateralism” – an apparent dig at the US, which has sought to rebuild ties with its allies as it ramps up its rivalry with China.

COP26, G20 prospects dimmer without China’s Xi Jinping in the room

Dozens of ambassadors and leaders of international organisations were present at the conference. World leaders including French President Emmanuel Macron, UN Secretary General António Guterres, President Vladimir Putin of Russia and Britain’s Prince Charles also delivered remarks via video.

The COP15 conference is being held as China seeks to claim the moral high ground on global environmental governance while facing headwinds from the United States and its allies on a wide range of issues that include geopolitical, economic, technical and human rights concerns.

Xi earlier pledged that China would reach peak carbon emissions before 2030, and achieve carbon neutrality by 2060. Addressing the UN General Assembly last month, he further promised that China would not build new coal-fired power projects abroad.

Those pledges come alongside Beijing’s efforts to avoid the appearance of bowing to pressure from the US and its allies.

During a September meeting with John Kerry, the US special envoy for climate change, Foreign Minister Wang Yi asserted that US-China cooperation on climate could not “be divorced from” overall bilateral ties.
To promote peak carbon and carbon neutrality goals, China was formulating a “1+N” policy system, Xi said. This means the country would, by 2030, implement one central policy agenda to drive its peak carbon and neutrality targets, with supplementary action plans for key areas and industries.

National parks are one of the most important types of protected area in China, with 10 pilot programmes launched in 12 provinces since 2015.

Roughly 18 per cent of China’s land area is currently nature reserve. The country’s protected area system has brought 90 per cent of terrestrial ecosystem types and 71 per cent of key state-protected wildlife species under state protection, according to a white paper on China’s biodiversity conservation efforts released last Friday.

Li Shuo, a global policy adviser for Greenpeace East Asia, said funding and a strong implementation mechanism should be the biggest legacy of China’s Convention on Biological Diversity presidency.

“The Kunming Biodiversity Fund launched today should be able to help jump-start an urgently needed conservation on biodiversity finance,” Li said.

“International public finance has an important leveraging effect on other sources of finance,” he added. “COP15 needs to see donor countries from the developed world contributing in this regard.”

China has expanded funding for biodiversity conservation in recent years. From 2017 to 2018, more than 260 billion yuan was allocated annually for biodiversity-related work, or six times the investment in 2008, according to the white paper.

Xi’s announcement about national parks was a step further towards better preserving biodiversity, Li said.

“China’s domestic efforts in setting up natural reserve systems should help it to spearhead the march towards the global ‘30 by 30’ goal,” he noted.

01:24

China to reduce carbon emissions by over 65 per cent, Xi Jinping says

China to reduce carbon emissions by over 65 per cent, Xi Jinping says
At the virtual UN summit on climate change last December, Xi pledged to cut China’s carbon dioxide emissions per unit of gross domestic product, or carbon intensity, by more than 65 per cent from 2005 levels by 2030. China’s 2015 target of lowering carbon intensity, by comparison, had aimed for 60-65 per cent by 2030.

Xi also said China would increase the share of non-fossil fuels in primary energy consumption to around 25 per cent during the same period, up from a previous commitment of 20 per cent.

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: Xi pledges 1.5b yuan for fund that will help developing nations protect biodiversity global biodiversity, more support for solar and wind power
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