$7 million in aid offered to developing countries to carry out biodiversity initiatives ahead of COP16

China is willing to share experience and funds to help developing countries in biodiversity protection, thereby improving global environment, officials and experts said on Friday.

The first installment of 50 million yuan ($7 million) in funding from the Kunming Biodiversity Fund is expected to be utilized before the upcoming 16th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, or COP16, as announced by Liu Ning, an official from the Ministry of Ecology and Environment.

Huang Runqiu, president of COP15 and China's minister of ecology and environment, said at the 2024 Annual General Meeting of the China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development, a high-level advisory body for the Chinese government, that China welcomes various countries to cooperate with the Kunming fund.

Liu explained that the funds will be primarily directed toward supporting activities determined by COP15 and biodiversity-related projects decided upon during the 6th session of the United Nations Environment Assembly.

In 2021, during the leaders' summit of the COP15, President Xi Jinping announced that China would take the lead by contributing 1.5 billion yuan to establish the Kunming Biodiversity Fund to support biodiversity protection efforts in developing countries.

"This is a commitment made by China. We hope to promote the successful implementation of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework internationally through the participation of the entire society," Liu said.

Last year, China spearheaded the implementation initiative of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, with responses from 26 contracting parties including Canada, Germany and the United Nations Environment Program.

Objective 19 of the Kunming framework aims to increase overseas development assistance from developed countries and voluntarily committed developing countries.

In May, China officially launched the Kunming fund when signing a cooperation agreement with the UNEP and the United Nations Multilateral Fund Office in Beijing.

Achim Steiner, deputy chair of the CCICED, said that the Kunming fund is a generous initiative by China. He expects to see the fund to have a greater impact.

Steiner, who also serves as the deputy secretary-general of the UN and administrator of the United Nations Development Program, highlighted the importance of determining the sources and income models for biodiversity protection funding due to the varying economic situations and budgetary requirements of different countries.

"I also call on developed countries to fulfill their funding commitments and address the biodiversity funding gap," Liu said.

Huang said that China, as a significant participant, contributor and leader in global ecological civilization construction, has achieved many accomplishments in recent years.

"For instance, China pioneered and implemented the ecological protection red line system, effectively protecting 90 percent of land ecosystem types and 74 percent of national key wildlife populations within over 30 percent of prioritized land areas," he said.

Additionally, China has undertaken 52 integrated protection and restoration projects for mountains, waters, forests, farmlands, lakes, grasslands and deserts, covering a total restored area exceeding 6.7 million hectares.

"The investment from both the central and local governments in each of these 52 ecosystem restoration projects amounts to tens of billions of yuan. We have taken engineering measures to restore ecosystems that we believe require urgent attention, supplemented by natural restoration," he explained.

China's forest coverage rate surpassed 24 percent last year, with approximately one-fourth of the global increase in green areas since the beginning of the century. The mangrove area has expanded to about 29,200 hectares, making China one of the few countries globally with a net increase in mangrove area, he added.