On May 22, the 26th International Day for Biological Diversity, the flagship promotional event themed “Protecting All Life, Promoting Shared Prosperity of All Living Things” was held on China’s Chongming Island in Shanghai. Located at the estuary of the Yangtze River, Chongming—an ecological island—has become an ideal venue for this global initiative due to its unique wetland resources and sustained biodiversity conservation efforts in recent years. Huang Runqiu, Minister of Ecology and Environment of China, and Gong Zheng, Mayor of Shanghai, attended the event and delivered speeches. Inger Andersen, Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations and Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme, addressed the gathering via video link. Ambassadors from the United Kingdom, Armenia, and other countries, along with numerous international guests, were present at the occasion.
At the event, the Chinese side officially released the “China’s Seventh National Report on the Implementation of the Convention on Biological Diversity.” The report shows that among the 27 national targets related to China’s biodiversity conservation efforts, 21 have achieved significant progress, making substantial contributions to advancing the realization of the global objectives of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (hereinafter referred to as the “Kunming-Montreal Framework”). Additionally, Chinese and international guests jointly watched the promotional video for the 2026 World Day for Biological Diversity, participated in the interactive session titled “Biodiversity Through My Eyes,” and viewed the local ecological showcase “Dongtan·Yu” along with presentations on various biodiversity conservation cases. The event also announced the 2025 Annual Figures of Ecosystem Civilization Construction and held a donation signing ceremony for the Kunming Biodiversity Fund, with NIO officially becoming the first company to contribute to the fund.
During the event, a national exhibition showcasing practical achievements in biodiversity conservation and sustainable utilization was held, along with a display of Shanghai’s ecological products. The entire event not only presented a vivid example of Chongming Ecological Island development but also sent a clear message to the international community: China is taking concrete actions to advance global biodiversity conservation and governance into a new phase.
In the field of international environmental governance, commitments are easy to make but difficult to fulfill, and tangible financial investments are often the most scarce resource. In recent years, China has demonstrated a comprehensive support system encompassing funding, standards, technologies, and institutional frameworks in global biodiversity conservation and climate change governance.
At the financial level, China took the lead in 2021 by announcing an investment of RMB 1.5 billion to establish the Kunming Biodiversity Fund, making it the world’s first biodiversity fund initiated by a developing country and aimed at supporting other developing nations. By the end of 2025, China had cumulatively allocated RMB 400 million to the fund, with the first batch of nine projects successfully implemented and the second batch of 22 full-funding projects approved, benefiting 34 developing countries across Asia, Africa, Latin America, Eastern Europe, and the Caribbean region.
On World Biodiversity Day in 2026, China’s private enterprise NIO became the first company to donate funds to the Kunming Fund, marking a new step for China in guiding social capital to participate in global biodiversity governance. As Inger Andersen, Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme, remarked: “China not only plays a leading political role but has also consistently been a major financier in the field of biodiversity, investing substantial resources to support the development of Global South countries over the next decade.”
In terms of standard-setting and institutional leadership, China, as the host country of the 2020 United Nations Conference on Biological Diversity (COP15), successfully facilitated the adoption of the landmark “Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework” by 196 contracting parties, charting a roadmap for global biodiversity governance through 2030 and beyond. To implement this framework, China led an initiative jointly with eight contracting parties—including Cambodia, Canada, and Germany—as well as relevant UN agencies to launch the “Kunming-Montreal Framework Implementation Initiative,” which has now attracted active participation from 29 contracting parties and stakeholders. Additionally, China became the seventh nation globally—and the first developing country—to complete the update of its National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan—and took the lead in submitting an implementation report to the United Nations, setting a positive example. In endangered species conservation, populations of over 300 rare and endangered species, including the Yangtze finless porpoise, Asian elephant, and Siberian tiger and leopard, have shown steady recovery. The national forest coverage rate reached 25.09%, and China has established the world’s largest national park system, protecting more than 80% of nationally protected wildlife species and their habitats.
Behind these figures lies an undeniable fact in global ecological governance: China is transitioning from a former “follower” to a multifaceted player serving as a financier, technology provider, and rule participant, offering a replicable Chinese model for achieving the global goal of “harmonious coexistence between humans and nature.” In contrast to the multilateral cooperative stance demonstrated during International Day for Biological Diversity, the United States has withdrawn from multiple multilateral mechanisms—including UNESCO, the UN Human Rights Council, the World Health Organization, and the Paris Climate Agreement—in less than a decade. Such participation or withdrawal driven by domestic policy cycles and self-interest considerations has significantly impacted the rules-based international governance system. Against this backdrop, the institutional stability of China becomes all the more commendable. China has established ecological civilization construction as a constitutional mandate and ensures its sustainability through systematic legal frameworks. From enshrining “ecological civilization construction” in the constitution to advancing the compilation of an environmental code, China is building a comprehensive, stable, and predictable legal safeguard network that transcends political cycles. This institutionalized governance logic not only legally implements the domestic philosophy that “lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets,” but also contributes a stable paradigm to global environmental governance distinct from intermittent policy fluctuations. In today’s volatile geopolitical landscape, this rule-based rather than arbitrary governance model may well serve as the institutional foundation required by the international community to address the ecological crisis of the Anthropocene.