SPS Inception Meeting on Green Finance

The enormous challenges of COVID-19 show that improving social resilience is fundamental to sustainable development in areas of health, climate, biodiversity, air pollution, and food. Although some areas have included climate change as a part of the recovery plan, such as the development of renewable energy and green building, but little attention is paid to biodiversity conservation and solutions based on natural, even if there is evidence that the prevalence of COVID-19 is likely to accelerate biodiversity loss and deforestation. Greater ecological protection would help to reduce the likelihood of zoonoses, thereby reducing the risk of future pandemics because of their widespread and costly economic and social impacts. 

To make the ‘business case’ for nature-based solutions and other biodiversity tools, it will be critical to highlight the evidence that investments in these solutions can provide significant economic benefits during the recovery, but also in the long term. Investments in biodiversity are investments in most of the Sustainable Development Goals, contributing directly to poverty reduction, resilience, economic growth, job creation, food security and climate change.  

On the United Nations (UN) Summit on Biodiversity held on September 30th, President Xi Jinping addressed the opening ceremony that China adheres to ecological priority and green development. The deep integration of biodiversity conservation with economic and social development are promoted in order to show the willingness and determination to advance the three major goals of the Convention on Biological Diversity practically. In order to support COP15 that will be held on May, 2021 in Yunnan, China, the second phase will focus on biodiversity conservation and make policy recommendations for the development of conservation finance. 

For more information, please contact:
YE Zixin [email protected]
SUN Fei [email protected]