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On October 15, the COP15 Ecological Civilization Forum—"Financial Sector Supporting Biodiversity" Forum was held in Kunming, China, which was co-organized by China Banking Association (CBA), National Academy of Development and Strategy (NADS) of Renmin University of China (RUC) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Liu Wei, President of RUC, Zhao Yingmin, Vice Minister of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, Zong Guoying, Executive Vice Governor of Yunnan Province, Liu Liange, Chairman of Bank of China (BOC) and Vice President of CBA, and Beate Trankmann, UNDP China Resident Representative attended the forum and delivered speeches. Tian Guoli, Chairman of China Construction Bank (CCB) and President of CBA, Zhang Qingsong, President of Agricultural Bank of China (ABC), and Filip Vujanovic, former President of Montenegro delivered speeches via video link. The session of speeches was presided over by Pan Guangwei, Secretary of the Party Committee and Executive Vice President of CBA.
Liu Wei, President of RUC, said that biodiversity forms the basis of human survival and development, which is the vein and root of the community of life on the earth. At present, the situation of universally threatened global biodiversity is deteriorating that is in urgent need for the international community to work together and explore the path of harmonious coexistence between human and nature. China is a significant party and promoter of the Convention on Biological Diversity and its treaties, and always boosts global biodiversity governance as a responsible major power. In this year, China's Biosecurity Law and the newly amended Animal Epidemic Prevention Law officially came into force that biodiversity conservation turns out to be a more important agenda. The perfecting biodiversity legislation fully demonstrates China's resolute determination of protecting biodiversity, developing ecological civilization and building a Beautiful China. From the strategic and far-reaching perspective, RUC takes advantage of its disciplines and resources, elaborately incubates the "RUC Brand" of Chinese top think tank such as NADS, thus actively provides intellectual support to national development, and contributes Chinese wisdom to the global governance system reform.
(Liu Wei, President of RUC and President of NADS, RUC)
Zhao Yingmin, Vice Minister of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, pointed out that the Chinese government attaches great importance to biodiversity conservation and has made remarkable achievements. However, the global biodiversity conservation is in great shortage of fund, and he looked forward to more investment from the banking sector.
(Zhao Yingmin, Vice Minister of Ministry of Ecology and Environment)
Zong Guoying, Executive Vice Governor said that financial support is indispensable for better biodiversity conservation and tighter national biosecurity barrier. He hoped that banking and financial institutions work together to actively develop green finance and offer more financing support for developing ecological civilization and protecting biodiversity.
(Zong Guoying, Executive Vice Governor of Yunnan Province)
Beate Trankmann, UNDP China Resident Representative, commented, "Investing nature is investing future. It's time to put nature at the heart of our economy, budget and investment. We have a long way to go to get money flowing to the planet that serves us." She stressed to strengthen the capital flow across three stakeholders—the public, private and financial institutions should bring together governments, enterprises and banks to jointly save nature. UNDP is cooperating with worldwide partners to provide support in three major aspects: firstly, all countries must upgrade their public financial strategies for nature; secondly, enterprises must readjust their directions of investment and financing for nature; thirdly, financial institutions must reflect the true value of nature.
(Beate Trankmann, UNDP China Resident Representative)
Tian Guoli, Chairman of CCB and President of CBA, Liu Liange, Chairman of BOC and Vice President of CBA and Zhang Qingsong, President of ABC explained their biodiversity practices respectively that serve as concrete practice samples for the peers.
(Tian Guoli, Chairman of CCB and President of CBA)
(Liu Liange, Chairman of BOC and Vice President of CBA)
(Zhang Qingsong, President of ABC)
Invited by NADS, RUC, Filip Vujanovic, former President of Montenegro said in the opening remark that we need a quick, profound and interdependent approach to address the crisis and keep climate change within a reasonable range. Economic growth will bring about a thorough shift that many technologies will transit to a new model and structure. Such transition will make our economy less reliant on arm force, and our companies less reliant on natural resources, thus alleviating the negative impact of economy on the environment, and saving biodiversity as well. He appreciated NADS, RUC's key role in promoting global ecological civilization vision and initiative, and transforming towards a sustainable future.
(Filip Vujanovic, former President of Montenegro)
The keynote speech session was presided over by Liu Jiandong, Chief Risk Officer of BOC. Professor Xu Qinhua, Vice President of NADS, RUC, on behalf of NADS, delivered a keynote speech titled "Carbon Neutrality, Green Finance and Biodiversity Conservation". He said that developing green finance is not only a significant part of the structural reform at financial supply side in the new era, but a powerful policy instrument for the goals of carbon peaking and carbon neutrality. For the purposes of actively responding to the call of Chinese President Xi Jinping, implementing the major decisions and deployments made by the CPC Central Committee, and better carrying forward RUC's special advantage and glorious tradition in supporting decision-making, political consulting and people enlightening, thanks to the instructions and support of national ministries and commissions, RUC officially established a research institute on carbon peaking and carbon neutrality on September 25, and the two national top think tanks—NADS and CNPC Economics & Technology Research Institute jointly founded the "Carbon Neutrality Research Center". The research institute aims to make greater contributions to the economic indicator, environmental effect, legal supervision and global governance of green finance promoting biodiversity conservation.
(Presentation by Professor Xu Qinhua, Vice President of NADS, RUC on behalf of NADS)
The dialog session was presided over by Ma Chaode, UNDP China Resident Representative Assistant. Professor Wu Jian of School of Environment & Natural Resources, RUC, said in the dialog that biodiversity conservation is a highly policy-intensive field that in the short term the government needs to take actions first and create favorable market conditions for investors of biodiversity conservation. Looking to the challenges and opportunities in the future, we should use our wisdom to identify the win-win opportunities for both conservation and development, and through the joint efforts of government, bank, private sector and all walks of life, broaden the financing channels for biodiversity conservation, take common actions for conservation, and strive to realize the conservation targets by 2030.
At the end of the forum, the banking financial institutions, international organizations and research institutes released a Joint Declaration of Banking Sector to Support Biodiversity Conservation to further strengthen support for biodiversity conservation.
About NADS, RUC's Engagement in Kunming COP15 Process
The 15th Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP15) is the first top-level multilateral environmental conference hosted by China, and the international community expects China to play a central role in the Kunming Process. Led by NADS, a Chinese top think tank, RUC actively applied for engagement in the Kunming Process to provide intellectual support addressing the huge challenges of biodiversity conservation.
Since joining the Kunming COP15 process, to expand the international and social influence of COP15 Ecological Civilization Forum, thanks to the guidance of COP15 national executive committee office and the secretariat of forum, NADS, RUC has organized serial warming-up activities since November 2020, e.g. the online-offline China-EU Green Development Forum 2020 in Beijing on December 3, 2020, the online China-U.S. Climate Change Cooperation Closed-door Roundtable on April 8, 2021, the online-offline international symposium 20 Years of SCO: Marching Towards a Community of Shared Future for a Green, Healthy and Common Development on May 13, 2021, the Global Green Development Young Talents Courses Symposium on June 17, 2021, the China-Russia Energy Transition Forum co-organized with Moscow School of Management SKOLKOVO on September 10, 2021, the online-offline 2020 China-Egypt Science and Technology Cooperation Forum: Innovation and Development, Cooperation and Prosperity in Beijing and Cairo on November 28, 2020 and the China-Egypt Forum on Smart Healthcare co-organized with Ain Shams University on September 18, 2021. These serial warming-up events demonstrated China's important standpoints on building ecological civilization, climate change cooperation and biodiversity conservation and the achievements of green development, actively promote green culture exchanges and civilization mutual-learning, and jointly explored the drivers for green development to spur the green resurrection of world economy.
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