China pledged to inject $233 million into a new fund called “Kunming Biodiversity Fund” for the protection of biodiversity in developing countries, recently.

Highlights

• This decision was taken during a key UN conservation summit, even though major donors disagreed on it.
• China pledged as it the world’s biggest polluter and seeks to play a prominent role internationally on biodiversity conservation.

UN Conservation Summit

• China pledged as delegates from around 195 countries met in Chinese city of Kunming for a summit on safeguarding plants, animals and ecosystems.
• This summit seeks to establish a new accord, setting targets for 2030 and 2050.

30 by 30 agenda

Countries are also debating on proposal called “30 by 30 agenda” at the conference. This agenda will afford 30 percent of land and oceans protected status of Earth by 2030. Global spending on protection and restoration of nature needs to triple this decade, accounting for $350 billion annually by 2030 while $536 billion by 2050 in order to meet this target.

Kunming Biodiversity fund

The funding issue for the Kunming Biodiversity Fund will be taken up in January 2022 at negotiations in Geneva. China’s pledge is below the $4 billion committed by Britain for conservation projects across the world as well as France’s commitment to spend 30 percent of its climate finance on protection of biodiversity.