As countries prepare to gather for the Fifteenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in December 2022, the stakes for global biodiversity couldn’t be higher. Over the last half century, global wildlife population sizes plummeted by 60 percent. A 2019 UN report, one among many, warned that the current global response to this accelerating loss of species is insufficient and that “transformative changes are needed to restore and protect nature.”

With Huang Runqiu, Minister of China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment, as acting president, the city of Kunming hosted COP 15 Part One in October 2021. The theme was Ecological Civilization – Building a Shared Future for All Life on Earth. Ecological civilization building (生态文明建设) has been the framework for China’s national approaches to sustainability and conservation. Its thematic elevation in COP 15 signaled the extent to which China hopes to bring its top-down and number-heavy conservation practices to the world.

The Kunming event showcased China’s efforts to bring this vision into action. Kunming is the provincial capital of Yunnan Province, a region rich in biodiversity, with unique animals such as the snub-nosed monkey and the eastern hoolock gibbon. China’s delegation had planned to highlight major advances in conservation science during the meeting. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, however, field trips took the form of video presentations. Side events, likewise, became curated presentations. COP 15 Part One was highly orchestrated with an emphasis on plenary presentations and little room for interventions. Under China’s lead, open-ended discussions on biodiversity issues were heavily curtailed. 

The most pressing agenda item is the Post-2020 Biodiversity Framework – a biodiversity agreement for the next decade. China has struggled to effectively bring the international community together on this agreement. At present, only 2 out of the 21 Framework targets are fully agreed upon. While China’s environmental leadership and achievements were on display during COP 15 Part One, it remains to be seen how effective China will be in Part Two, scheduled to commence in Montreal from December 7-19, 2022. China’s leadership in this international democratic forum is crucial for a successful and meaningful outcome.

From Kunming to Montreal

China’s zero-covid policy, which limits the mobility of foreign nationals and Chinese citizens alike, precipitated the move of COP 15 Part Two from Kunming to Montreal, now the seat of the CBD Secretariat. The move indexes the gap between China’s extensive domestic conservation projects, which have been orchestrated through authoritarian decisions, and its capabilities to lead in the international field of environmental diplomacy. 

One of China’s limitations in global environmental leadership, it seems, is effectively engaging international constituencies in democratic dialogue toward collective agreements. In late June 2022, a number of international NGOs, including Greenpeace, the Wildlife Conservation Society, and the International Indigenous Forum on Biodiversity, released an open letter criticizing the relative absence of high-level political engagement and leadership to solidify an international agreement on biodiversity targets.

The first attempt to outline an updated global biodiversity agreement, the Post-2020 Biodiversity Framework “zero draft”, was not released until 2020 – the year before it was supposed to take effect. The previous agreement, the Aichi targets for 2011-2020, took three years to negotiate through multilateral discussion and working groups equipped with substantial scientific data. 

The “zero draft” proposed many large-scale even-numbered targets. It called for 50 percent of the earth’s surface to be included in spatial planning for functional land-sea use and 30 percent set aside for conservation. The latter reflects the globally circulating idea of “30 by 30,” to zone 30 percent of the world for conservation by the year 2030. The official first draft, released in 2021, maintained that the entire earth surface be included in spatial planning for functional land-sea use and 30 percent be set aside for conservation. The scale of global conservation zoning in this framework is paramount.

Nature trumps social participation

A recent study estimates that if half of the earth is protected, over one billion people, primarily in middle-income countries, would suddenly be living in protected areas. These people would experience limited access to natural resources and may potentially become conservation-induced refugees. The expansion of protected areas risks exacerbating global inequalities and justifying the displacement of people common to the formation of protected areas across international contexts. 

China’s domestic efforts to conserve nature and build an ecological civilization are no exception. They regularly demand citizen sacrifices. In recent years, China has undertaken one of the most comprehensive biodiversity conservation zoning programs, commonly referred to as ecological redlining, which entails remote sensing and spatial analysis techniques to integrate ecosystem management and biodiversity priorities. Largely a quantitative assessment, efforts to synthesize national models with local realities have been a continual source of inter-governmental and managerial contention. Involuntary resettlement, often referred to as ecological migration, occurs in tandem with ecological redlining and other forms of conservation zoning in China. In an instance of ecological redlining in Kunming, conservation zoning displaced thousands of rural people and, in effect, paved the way for extensive real estate development illicitly built along the banks of Lake Dian. 

Despite the difficulties of practical implementation, ecological redlining techniques have been advanced as a model for conservation for other Global South countries. Research shows, however, that ecological redlining in China not only reconfigures nature but also reinforces state power and social inequality. Indeed, authoritarian government structures rapidly mobilize people and resources to strengthen “ecological security.” The coupled problem of ecological degradation and socio-natural insecurities encompasses a wide range of issues, from access to food and water to public health and economic security. 

North American and Western European countries routinely critique China’s conservation efforts as undemocratic. Within China, however, protecting nature trumps social participation. In contrast, COP meetings are international participatory events par excellence. And producing globally agreed-upon biodiversity targets requires extensive international diplomacy. The jury is out on whether or not China can successfully catalyze the needed transformative change for a successful and meaningful biodiversity framework.

Will the China model become the global model?

In anticipation of COP 15 Part One, China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment released its first white paper on biodiversity conservation. The paper lauded China’s system of protected areas with “90 percent of terrestrial ecosystem types” and “71 percent of key state-protected wildlife species under effective protection.” In 2020, China launched a national park system and established new laws for protecting wetlands and the Yangtze River. Additionally, recent bans on coastal land reclamation aim to protect migratory bird habitats.

The scale and speed of China’s domestic conservation programs and laws are remarkable. What remains to be seen is how China’s national conservation successes will bear on its leadership in a contested international arena that operates with democratic norms, thus demanding compromises. 

In Montreal, China will once again be at the helm. Will China be able to present the polished image of ecological civilization building on an international stage without the performative mechanisms that permeated Part One? Can China lead the world to a new biodiversity framework? And if so, will the large-scale protected area frameworks proliferating within mainland China become the new norm for global biodiversity conservation? 

These are some of the key questions leading up to COP 15 in December. The answers are of great consequence not only for nature but also for the future of global environmental governance.