Elion to tackle desertification in France

Wang Wenbiao, president of Elion Resources Group speaks at a gathering of COP21 at Le Bourget, near Paris, France, Dec 1, 2015. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Eager to enhance the world's ability to tackle desertification, China's Elion Resources Group conducted the study on the Kubuqi Desert - China's seventh largest desert in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region as an example to promote the awareness of environmental protection in France.

The study released in the World Climate Change Conference 2015 (COP21) at Le Bourget, near Paris, showed that Elion Resources restored 12,700 square kilometers of the desert over a 27-year period in a remediation project that helped with poverty relief and benefitted 100,000 people and created jobs for more than 1 million.

Wang Wenbiao, president of Elion Resources, said the control of desertification is very important for coping with climate change and that hot, arid desert areas accounting for around a fourth of the planet's land surface have a great effect on climate change. He told the gathering at COP21.

Wang went on to say that dealing with desertification is as important as reducing greenhouse gases for stopping climate change. Action is urgently needed and the target is clear, which was backed by Wu Chanhua, Greater China director of the Climate Group, who commended the Kubuqi model and said that it’s badly need a successful mode that could be copied on large scale.

The Kubuqi Action Plan of Global Desertification Control (2015-25) was passed at the Fifth Kubuqi International Desert Forum in July in China.

The action plan is one of the initiatives supported by the UN convention. It includes targets to improve technology management around the world, especially in developing countries along the Silk Road Economic Belt, which runs through Asia to Europe.

"It will promote a public-private partnership to encourage the participation of enterprises and individuals. Elion Resources will finance the planting of 130 million trees along the belt in the next three to five years," said Wang.

Desertification is a thorny problem that faces many countries. Over 110 countries are beset by desertification, which costs them up to $50 billion annually and affects the livelihoods of about a billion impoverished people.