A herd of wild Asian elephants wanders in Pu'er, Yunnan province, China, on July 19, 2023. (PHOTO: XINHUA)

By TANG Zhexiao

China is often seen as a major country pursuing a global transition to cleaner energy.

In fact, China's remarkable efforts in the global green push toward renewable energy and biodiversity conservation, make it an increasingly proponent in leading actions to protect the environment.

China has raced ahead in developing renewable energy and become a major contributor to global carbon emissions reduction, said Huang Runqiu, minister of ecology and environment of China.

According to the China's National Energy Administration(NEA), the total installed capacity of renewable energy had hit 1.32 billion kilowatts by the end of June, surpassing that of coal. The installed capacities of hydropower, wind power and solar power all rank first globally.

The cost of solar photovoltaic installation dropped about 82 percent from 2010 to 2021, and that of wind power decreased from 35 percent to 40 percent. These have not only promoted China's green and low-carbon development, but also contributed to global carbon emissions reduction.

Meanwhile, since 2014, China has begun to play a key role in facilitating the conclusion of the Paris Agreement by reaching a Joint Announcement on Climate Change.

The country has also provided great support and help to other developing countries in this regard. According to the Foreign Ministry of China, the country has signed 43 South-South cooperation documents on climate response with 38 developing countries, trained some 2,000 officials and professional personnel specializing in climate response from more than 120 developing countries, and made a positive contribution to building a fair, reasonable and win-win global climate governance system.

As species worldwide are becoming extinct at an alarming rate, biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation pose a major risk to human survival and development. China has therefore strengthened biodiversity conservation as a national strategy through long-range planning and top-level design.

Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, executive secretary of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, commended China's measures on mainstreaming biodiversity, including establishing national parks and drawing up ecological redlines.

Since 1956, when the first nature reserve was set up, China has established nearly 10,000 protected areas of all types and at all levels, accounting for about 18 percent of its total land area, according to Biodiversity Conservation in China.

A trial basis 10 national parks, including one at Sanjiangyuan, the cradle of the Yangtze, Yellow and Lancang rivers, have been launched by the country since 2015.

In October 2021, when the Kunming Declaration was adopted at COP15, the country announced it would invest 1.5 billion RMB (about 214.5 million USD) to establish the Kunming Biodiversity Fund to support biodiversity protection in developing countries.

Ecological civilization is a key element of the current five-year plan (of China) and that's good, said Norway's Climate and Environment Minister Espen Barth Eide, adding that Norway and many other countries are thinking in the same direction.

Additionally, to advance green Belt and Road Initiative development, China has released and updated a guideline on environmental protection for overseas projects, calling on enterprises to implement the concept of ecological civilization and to promote the green and high-quality development of projects.

Though the recent G20 environment meeting failed to adopt a communique, due to introduction of geopolitical issues by some countries, China will continue to strengthen policy exchange and practical cooperation on environmental and climate issues with other countries in the G20 and other frameworks, to jointly promote green, low carbon and sustainable development around the world, China's Foreign Ministry spokesperson remarked on August 2.