China Dialogue

July 19, 2022
On 21 June, China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE) announced that the second phase of COP15 – the 15th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity – would be relocated from the southern Chinese city of Kunming to Montreal, Canada, and held 5–17 December.

The news confirmed rumours that had been circulating for some time, and sparked widespread discussion. I have been working closely on COP15 for three years and was not surprised by the change of venue. But it remains disappointing.

Originally scheduled for October 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic saw the meeting initially postponed to May 2021, and then split into two phases. The first, made up of non-negotiation agenda items, was held last October and most international participants attended virtually. The second phase was due to take place in the first half of this year.

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The Guardian

June 21, 2022
The date for a key UN nature summit has finally been confirmed after more than two years of delays and amid fears momentum to halt biodiversity loss across the globe has been lost.

Ahead of the latest round of negotiations in Nairobi this week, the UN convention on biological diversity confirmed that the Cop15 biodiversity conference will now take place in Montreal, Canada, from 5 to 17 December, after it became clear China would not be able to host the event in Kunming due to the country’s zero-Covid policy.

It comes after several pandemic-related delays to the meeting, which was meant to take place in October 2020, and amid intense frustration with Beijing, who are holding the presidency for a major UN environmental agreement for the first time.

Fears had been building over the prohibitive cost for smaller countries to participate in Cop15 if it were held in China, along with concerns over restrictions on civil society, Indigenous groups and the press.

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Edie

June 21, 2022
The summit was originally planned for Kunming, China, in 2020. It was delayed due to the Covid-19 pandemic and subsequently split into two parts, with the first part successfully completed in Kunming in October 2021 and the second meeting in Kunming taking place this spring.

The second meeting was unsuccessful, with no final deal agreed. Interim talks in Nairobi were, therefore, added to the UN’s calendar for this summer, and a final meeting for Kunming in autumn. However, China saw a spike in Covid-19 cases in the first quarter of the year and places including Beijing and Shanghai were put into lockdown.

With all of this in mind, concern had been growing that the summit would not conclude this year if its conclusion depended on a face-to-face event in China. This would mean that the post-2020 set of international biodiversity goals would be more than two years delayed in terms of their creation and implementation. The previous set of goals, the Aichi Goals, went unmet, and pressure is mounting on the UN to deliver a strong agreement to prevent Earth’s sixth mass extinction.

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Reuters

June 21, 2022
The United Nations said on Tuesday it would move talks to secure a global post-2020 biodiversity agreement from Kunming in China to Montreal, Canada, following multiple pandemic-related delays.

Delegates to the Dec. 5-17 summit of the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity, known as COP-15, will aim to adopt a global framework for biodiversity to halt and reverse losses of the world's plants, animals, and ecosystems.

Initially scheduled to take place in the southwestern Chinese city in October 2020, COP15 was delayed due to COVID-19. Though a first round of discussions was held virtually in Kunming in October 2021, the convention's secretariat announced this March that the summit had been delayed for a fourth time as China battled another wave of COVID-19 cases.

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NewScientist

June 20, 2022
A long-delayed UN biodiversity summit will be held in Canada this year rather than China as originally planned, after concerns that the Chinese government would postpone it until 2023 due to covid-19.

The COP15 meeting of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) aims to bring together the world’s governments to agree a new deal on halting the loss of animals, plants and habitats globally by 2030.

However, the conference has been repeatedly delayed from its original date of October 2020 due to the covid-19 pandemic, despite other major environment summits taking place. Now, a decision has been taken by the COP bureau to relocate the meeting from Kunming, China, to Montreal, Canada, on 5 to 17 December, three sources have told New Scientist. An official announcement by the CBD is expected imminently today.

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Yahoo! Sports

June 20, 2022
The annual global summit on biodiversity, COP15, has been delayed by two months to December and will now be hosted in Canada rather than China, according to environmental charities.

This follows concerns the Chinese government would postpone the event for a fourth time into 2023 because of Covid-19 - the conference was originally due to be held in 2020.

The summit will provide governments a chance to come up with a long-term plan to reverse the threat to life on Earth - nearly a third of all species are currently endangered due to human activities.

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NewScientist

June 10, 2022

It's time for China to put national pride aside and let another country host the UN COP15 biodiversity conference, for the sake of wildlife, plants and habitats worldwide, says Adam Vaughan.

Imagine that for more than two years the world had decided not to bother setting a future target on action to avert climate change. That governments had accepted a status quo where one country repeatedly postponed a landmark UN climate summit despite other major meetings happening amid the lingering covid-19 pandemic. There would be outrage. Leaders would line up to condemn the limbo. Thousands of people would protest in the streets over inaction on such an existential issue.

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Diálogo China

January 25, 2022
During the first part of the COP15 Biodiversity Conference, held virtually in October 2021, Chinese president Xi Jinping launched a 1.5 billion yuan (US$233 million) fund for the protection of fauna and flora in developing countries.

With the second part of the convention due to take place in April this year, there are high expectations that the Kunming Fund, named after COP15’s host city in Yunnan province, southern China, could be a new source of green finance for Latin America, a region that is home to 40% of the world’s biodiversity.

The China Biodiversity Conservation and Green Development Foundation (CBCGDF) was the first organisation to announce a donation to the fund. Other NGOs have followed suit. Maggie Ma, a spokesperson for the foundation, told Diálogo Chino that they are still waiting for information from the Chinese government on how to conclude their transfer of 1 million yuan ($158,000) but that they believe funds can be leveraged for the more sustainable use of tropical forests.

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New Scientist

December 29, 2021
As the world examines the outcome of the COP26 climate summit, spare a thought for conservationists trying to protect the planet’s natural riches. A landmark UN biodiversity summit has been postponed three times because of the pandemic and now won’t be held in person in China until April, after a first session was held virtually last October.

The delay means that, incredibly, there are currently no global goals for stopping biodiversity loss. While countries missed most of the targets set for 2020, a new set of goals for 2030 – known as the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework – is still seen as essential for slowing and eventually reversing the decline of wildlife and habitats.

“I’m really hopeful that what’s adopted in Kunming will help move the needle on biodiversity,” says Susan Lieberman at the Wildlife Conservation Society, referring to the Chinese city where the COP15 biodiversity summit will be hosted.

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China Dialogue

October 28, 2021
Overshadowed by climate issues, China’s biodiversity governance rarely rises to global attention. Yet, during the recently convened first session of COP15, the UN Biodiversity Conference held in Kunming, President Xi Jinping promised to lead the world in “building a shared future for all life on Earth”, based on a vision of an “ecological civilisation”, and using China’s own conservation endeavours as examples. As China strives to tell a positive story of biodiversity conservation at home, has it figured out “China solutions” for conservation governance? Solutions that can face up to the enormous challenges its rapid economic development presents to ecosystems and species?

China is often overlooked as one of the most biologically diverse countries on the planet. Its vast land area, complex topography and several climate zones all contribute to this unique biodiversity. Yet it is also “one of the countries in the world where biodiversity is more threatened”, according to China’s 2018 Sixth National Report on the implementation of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). The China species red list, a recent national assessment based on the red list system of the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature), found the extinction risk of China’s vertebrate and higher plant species to be above the global average. About 43% of China’s amphibians are threatened with extinction, compared to a global average of 30.6%; and up to 59% of its 251 native species of gymnosperms (a group of plants including the conifers, cycads and ginkgo) are threatened. Habitat loss and over-exploitation are the most common factors contributing to species endangerment.

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Thomson Reuters Foundation News

October 13, 2021
China's launch of a biodiversity fund is a "good start" but falls short of what is needed to help developing countries meet the goals in a global nature pact, environmentalists warned, urging all rich nations to step up ambition and funding.

About 195 countries are set to finalise a new accord to safeguard the planet's plants, animals and ecosystems at a two-part U.N. summit that began this week and is due to be finish in May next year in the Chinese city of Kunming.

Addressing the COP15 biodiversity virtual summit on Tuesday, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced the highly anticipated launch of a 1.5 billion yuan ($232.47 million) fund to support biodiversity protection in developing countries.

But China's funding pledge was a "drop in the bucket" and disappointing "for such a major world power", said Charles Barber, a senior biodiversity advisor at the World Resources Institute, a U.S.-based think-tank.

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South China Morning Post

October 12, 2021
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, 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.

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Riff Reporter

October 8, 2021
One year late, almost 200 countries will start the final spurt of their negotiations on the future of nature and biodiversity at the 15th World Biodiversity Summit in Kunming, China, starting October 11th. The most important goal is to pass a new agreement to protect the natural foundations of life on earth. This is to stop the greatest extinction of species in human history and bring the use of nature on a sustainable and just path.

The Kunming Agreement is just as important in the fight against the global crisis in nature as the Paris Climate Agreement is in the fight against global warming. The final round of negotiations and adoption is not planned until the second part of the summit in spring. The three-day opening session could, however, bring important preliminary decisions about how ambitious the states are to tackle the fight against the planet's ecological crisis. The eyes are mainly on host China. Insiders think surprises are possible.

There will be no shortage of big words at the opening conference for the first part of the World Biodiversity Conference in Kunming. The Chinese government as host, the United Nations as host and the representatives of the almost 200 states party to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), who are only virtually connected, will not miss the dramatic state of nature on our planet and its improvement Prospect to face.

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rfi

October 7, 2021
The fifteenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (COP15) is scheduled to open in Kunming, China next Monday. The 5-day online meeting will adopt a global biodiversity protection action plan for the next ten years.

Affected by the new crown epidemic, the conference in Kunming has been postponed many times. The meeting was held at a time when all parties were preparing for the 26th meeting of the United Nations Climate Conference to be held in Glasgow next month. One of the two co-chairs of the convention working group, Basile van Havre, said in an online press conference on Wednesday. The opening of the conference next Monday will be an “important stage” in the negotiation of the convention. Beijing will also organize an online ministerial summit from October 12 to 13, when “98 ministers from 94 countries” will participate. A "Kunming Declaration" will be presented. Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, Executive Secretary of the Convention, expressed to AFP that he hopes that the declaration will further emphasize and recognize the importance of biodiversity to human health and the importance of political decision-making, and provide a basis for taking necessary global actions.

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The China Environment News

September 26, 2021
According to China Environment News: The 15th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD COP15) will be held in October, 2021, at which representatives from governments, enterprises, NGOs, media and other organizations around the world will gather in Kunming to discuss around the theme of "Ecological Civilization: Building a Shared Future for All Life on Earth" and release the "Kunming Declaration". As one of the eight parallel forums of CBD COP15, the NGO Parallel Forum will be held in Kunming from 27 to 28 September 2021. During the forum, All-China Environment Federation (ACEF) will host the theme forum "Environmental NGOs' Role in Biodiversity Mainstreaming" in joint with International Union for Conservation of Nature(IUCN).

This forum will invite NGOs from different countries in fields of ecological protection, climate change, sustainable consumption, and pollution prevention and control etc. to exchange and form concerted efforts on biodiversity conservation mainstreaming. Practical experiences and outstanding cases will be shared and the "Environmental NGOs' Joint Statement on Biodiversity Conservation Mainstreaming" will also be released by the end of the forum. Relevant institutions such as the government, private sectors, think tanks, and media will also be invited from the perspective of multi-stakeholders. Through incorporating the UN SDGs, all the attendees are expected to discuss and figure out both the opportunities and the challenges for future cooperation on mainstreaming biodiversity conservation as well as building a dialogue and collaboration platform for NGOs and multi-stakeholders.

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