Xie Zhenhua, China's Special Envoy on climate Change, attended the 2022 World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland. At the stakeholder dialogue on "Protecting Our Planet and People", he announced that China will actively respond to the World Economic Forum's leading initiative of "Planting a Trillion Trees Globally" and strive to plant 70 billion trees in 10 years to green our planet, combat climate change, biodiversity loss and enhance forest carbon sinks. Later, the National Forestry and Grassland Administration held a press conference to explain this goal in detail.
In the 17 years from 2000 to 2017, China accounted for about a quarter of the new green area in the world. The commitment of the Chinese government to plant 70 billion trees in the next 10 years shows China's firm determination and confidence in protecting the earth and striving for green and sustainable development. As Chinese social organizations, institutions and enterprises that have long paid attention to and invested in environmental protection, we highly agree with this. We are willing to mobilize and support all sectors of society to participate in the joint action of greening and protecting the Earth, and contribute to protect global biodiversity and the joint response to climate change. Therefore, we propose the following initiatives:
To respond to and support this important commitment by the Chinese Government to address climate change and protect biodiversity, building on past work and nature-based solutions.
The United Nations Environment Programme has released its latest report, "Frontiers 2022: Noise, Blazes and Mismatches," warns that climate change is happening too fast for many plant and animal species to adapt, already having profound effects on species viability and food production. Nature-based Solutions is the core of the Champion Initiative and one of the nine areas of the UN climate change initiative. It is part of China's efforts to build and implement a two-carbon "1+N" policy system. It is also an indispensable part of synergy with biodiversity protection and sustainable development. We welcome and support the Chinese government's continued efforts to green and protect the planet, further mainstream NbS, protect and restore China's biodiversity, enhance ecosystem services, and fulfill China's independent commitments on climate change.
We will give full play to the role of social organizations as Bridges, and mobilize all sectors of society to participate in greening and protecting the Earth.
Social organizations, especially environmental social organizations, are important actors in ecological and environmental protection in China, acting as a bridge and catalyst to promote multi-stakeholder participation in ecological protection and construction innovation. At the first stage of the 15th Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD COP15) held in Kunming last year, China's environmental and social organizations took the lead in organizing a parallel NGO forum, proposing the following: The commitment to mobilize 2.55 billion yuan by 2030 to help the state effectively protect and manage 100,000 square kilometers of land has been greatly echoed by the international community. These commitments will mobilize community resources for practical actions such as species and habitat conservation, ecological corridor construction, degraded ecosystems restoration, capacity training and public education across the wider region, all of which will contribute directly or indirectly to the pledged goals of biodiversity conservation and climate change synergies. We are ready to continue to carry out policy research and practical implementation on greening China to protect the earth, build a platform for all stakeholders to participate in ecological protection and climate response, vigorously encourage all parties to invest capital, technology and other resources to this end, and deeply participate in global environmental governance.
We will mobilize all sectors of society, especially enterprises and think tanks, to increase investment in nature and actively promote innovation in low-carbon development and green transformation.
All kinds of enterprises and financial institutions in the whole society are the main body of social economic activities. We are willing to through scientific research, policy advice, to provide tools and professional technology, mobilization and assist in all kinds of state-owned enterprises and the private sector to increase investment in the nature, participate in the ecological restoration, carry out low carbon development planning, green technology innovation, realizing green production and management transformation, development of ecological economy, related to biodiversity conservation Including the green economy related to tree planting and forest conservation. Since the reform and opening up, various economies have jointly participated in the protection of natural ecology and carried out various activities of afforestation and restoration of natural ecology on different scales all over the country. The green ecological economy is gradually taking shape and has made great contributions to the restoration and improvement of the natural ecological environment in the country. We will call on and mobilize more enterprises and financial institutions to participate in low-carbon and green development and innovation actions related to greening China.
We will strengthen public education on climate change and biodiversity protection, and tell good stories about environmental protection among the Chinese people.
Taking the opportunity of CBD COP15 held in China, combined with the implementation of the commitment to greening and protecting the Earth, we will carry out public participation activities on biodiversity protection and climate change, compile global classic cases, lead the public practice, and launch volunteer services. We will use a variety of media to promote science popularization and knowledge dissemination, and enhance the people's awareness and ability to protect biodiversity, live a low-carbon and green life, respond to climate change, and apply nature-based solutions. Promote public support and participation in scientific conservation and restoration activities such as afforestation; we will spread China's non-governmental actions at home and abroad and tell good stories about environmental protection.
We will cooperate with others to continuously improve the level of scientific tree planting and greening, and jointly protect the earth.
China has been carrying out afforestation and greening activities for decades, accumulating rich experience. The state has also introduced and implemented a series of plans for natural ecological protection and restoration, including the Master Plan for Major National Projects for the Protection and Restoration of Important Ecosystems (2021-2035). Ecological protection and restoration activities are required to follow the principles of "respecting nature, complying with nature, giving priority to protection and putting nature restoration first". We are willing to cooperate with related departments and local governments, jointly promote tree planting and afforestation work more follow natural law, scientific planning and evaluation and selection of appropriate green fields and recovery, appropriate forest and grass, appropriate irrigation, appropriate wet, appropriate drought, prevent blanket and simplification, prevent different ecosystem protection and restoration of unreasonable human competition, reasonable restoration should be carried out according to local climate and zonal vegetation conditions to avoid damaging native vegetation and causing new damage to biodiversity in the process of tree planting. Use native tree species and try to avoid single pure forest planting; preventing the introduction of invasive alien species; It is suggested that special departments should be designated to track, evaluate and supervise the progress and benefits of the tree-planting program scientifically, and make reasonable adjustments to the tree-planting program according to the evaluation results.
