China's Kunming ready to host key UN biodiversity meeting

Preparations are in the final stage in the southwestern Chinese city of Kunming for a UN meeting on biodiversity. 

The first part of the 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (COP15) is set to kick off in Kunming on Oct. 11. The meeting will review the "post-2020 global biodiversity framework" to draw a blueprint for biodiversity conservation in the future.

The second part, to be held in person in the first half of 2022, will see broad and deepened negotiations toward an ambitious and practical post-2020 global biodiversity framework, according to China's Ministry of Ecology and Environment.

"The preparatory work for the meeting is complete," said Wang Tianxi, deputy director of the Department of Ecology and Environment of Yunnan Province.

Guests will gather at Kunming's Dianchi International Convention and Exhibition Center, the main venue.

Participants will be encouraged to reduce their use of plastic water bottles and paper cups. Guests will be shuttled exclusively by new-energy vehicles. Carbon neutrality actions will be carried out to offset the greenhouse gases generated by the meeting, said Wang.

Baofeng Peninsula Wetland, about 108 hectares in size, is an outdoor exhibition project for the meeting. "The wetland park will show participants the results of the conservation and management of Dianchi Lake, as well as the original appearance and biodiversity of Dianchi Lake," said Ye Xiangqiang, a designer at the China Urban Construction Design & Research Institute.

Kunming Botanical Garden is also among the outdoor exhibition projects. Over 1,800 types of plants are collected in the greenhouse flora section. "They include rare plants in China, as well as plant species from five continents around the world," said Sun Weibang, director of the garden.

Kunming has completed face-lifts on 62 major roads as part of a city-wide beautification campaign in the run-up to the meeting. Volunteers are in place to welcome the guests.

Themed "Ecological Civilization: Building a Shared Future for All Life on Earth," the COP15 meeting is the first global conference convened by the United Nations on the topic of ecological civilization.

Though Yunnan accounts for only 4.1 percent of China's land area, the province is deemed a "Kingdom of Animals and Plants" and "Gene Bank of Species" because it harbors more than 50 percent of the country's biological species.

The province has established 166 nature reserves at different levels, protecting about 90 percent of the typical ecosystem and 85 percent of important species, including Asian elephants and Yunnan snub-nosed monkeys.