Talk of the Town
In his speech at CBD talks in Kunming on Wednesday 13 October, Xi Jinping announced a USD 232 million fund for biodiversity protection for developing countries. The announcement came alongside the adoption of the “Kunming Declaration” for biodiversity, signed onto by 100 countries, and represents one of the major concrete outcomes of the first meeting of this delayed CBD Conference of Parties (COP15).
In an article on The Paper, assistant researcher at the Chinese Academy of International Trade and International Cooperation (CAITIC) International Development Cooperation Institute, Sun Tianshu, noted that, though the sum promised by Xi is small in comparison to China’s domestic spending on biodiversity, it is a historic pledge in terms of funding for overseas biodiversity conservation. In 2017 and 2018, China’s government committed RMB 260 billion (USD 40.4 billion) for domestic biodiversity related work. This trend to spend far more domestically than internationally is a global problem, however. According to OECD data, just 3.9-9.3 billion USD of a total 78-91 billion USD spending on biodiversity per year (2015-17 average) goes outside of countries’ borders. In light of this context, Xi’s pledge of USD 232 million is a big step, and far higher than offered by CBD presidency holders such as Germany and Japan.
Questions remain, however, on how exactly the fund will be used and how other governments can contribute to it, a necessary next step in order to scale up funding to the amount required. In his article on The Paper, Sun Tianshu explains that China will first have to “explain to the global community in an open manner the principles and design of the fund.” She also suggests the fund could see important overlaps with China’s emerging green investments policy, as announced in July’s release of the “Guidelines on Green Development along the Belt and Road” by MOFCOM and the MEE, as well as with Xi’s UNGA pledge to “step up investments in green and low carbon energy” last month.
Secondly, Sun suggests as a concrete step that a part of the USD 232 million pledged to the fund so far could be used to carry out environmental impact assessments and relevant environment restoration and compensation for overseas infrastructure projects. According to a recent Boston University Global Development Policy Center policy brief, Chinese invested infrastructure projects tend to pose a higher risk to biodiversity than World Bank projects, particularly in the extractive and energy sectors. Sun also suggests the fund could be used to help provide subsidies for environmentally friendly projects overseas, a move which could help to financially de-risk projects such as renewables and facilitate Xi’s UNGA pledge for more green energy investments.
In another article published last week (a translation of which will be posted on Panda Paw Dragon Claw later this week) Sun argues that, as a complex and interdisciplinary area, overseas aid and financing for biodiversity will require “a streamlined and dynamic inter-agency cooperation mechanism” among different levels and departments of the Chinese government departments and other stakeholders. Streamlining the complex ecosystem of foreign aid stakeholders will be key to ensuring the global credibility of Xi’s new biodiversity fund and its efficacy, by which it will ultimately be judged.
Biodiversity will no doubt begin to feature more prominently in Beijing’s picture of a “Green Belt and Road” post Kunming. Over the weekend the Belt and Road Portal official WeChat account highlighted China and Russia’s collaboration on conservation programs for migratory birds and for the Amur leopard and Siberian tiger, which has seen a cross-border conservation zone established between China’s Jilin province and Russia’s far east.
|
