China advances biodiversity goals, progresses on Kunming-Montreal Targets

China has made solid progress in implementing the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework and will continue to strengthen domestic and international biodiversity protection, Chinese Minister of Ecology and Environment Huang Runqiu said on Monday.

Speaking at the opening ceremony of the Kunming Dialogue on Collective Progress in the Implementation of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework in Support of the Global Review, Huang said China has made significant progress in 21 of the framework's 27 national targets.

Adopted at the 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity in late 2022 under China's presidency, the framework has four long-term goals for 2050 and 23 action-oriented global targets over the decade to 2030.

It aims to ensure that by 2030 at least 30 percent of degraded terrestrial, inland water, and marine and coastal ecosystems are under effective restoration.

Since COP15, Huang said China has issued guidelines on further strengthening biodiversity conservation, advanced a national park-based protected area system, and drawn and strictly observed red lines for ecological conservation.

The areas encircled by red lines for conservation on land now account for more than 30 percent of China's territory and cover 95 percent of rare and endangered species and their habitats, he continued.

He added that China has continued to implement major biodiversity conservation and ecological restoration projects, while strengthening oversight of ecological protection and restoration. Nearly 500 wild plant and animal species in China have seen their threat status downgraded, and the populations of more than 300 rare and endangered wild species have been steadily increasing.

Beyond domestic efforts, China has continued to participate actively in global biodiversity governance. At the COP15 leaders' summit, China announced the establishment of the Kunming Biodiversity Fund, with an initial contribution of 1.5 billion yuan ($223.5 million).

So far, the Fund has approved two batches of 31 projects, benefiting 45 developing countries around the world, he noted.

Huang said global action to implement the Kunming-Montreal Framework is moving forward overall, and efforts by parties to curb and reverse biodiversity loss are continuing to strengthen. However, he warned that the favorable trend has yet to translate into transformative governance results.

He said the global review showed that current action remains insufficient to deliver the framework's targets on time. Although the implementation period for the 2030 targets is now more than halfway through, overall progress has fallen short of expectations and the gap between global collective action and the framework's ambition remains wide.

Developing countries, he added, face especially serious difficulties in meeting the 2030 goals.

"How to translate goals and commitments into governance results and into practical outcomes that protect nature and benefit people is a common task before us all," Huang said.

With just over four years left before the framework's 2030 targets are due, Huang urged all parties to seize the narrow window of opportunity and turn commitments into national policies and concrete measures.

Only by narrowing the North-South gap and taking systemic, transformative action, Huang said, can the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework be implemented in a comprehensive, balanced, and effective way.