4. What COP15 teaches us about environmental cooperation with China
Key Point Summary
Biodiversity loss is a growing environmental risk globally, with over a million plant and animal species at risk of extinction. Detrimental ecosystem changes can have negative ramifications for economic well-being, public health and resource competition.
China’s leadership of COP15, the UN’s Biodiversity Conference, demonstrates the opportunities and limitations of cooperating with China on environmental issues. While the conference achieved tangible results, civil society groups and journalists were given limited access to opaque negotiations.
COP 15 shows that environmental collaboration, if carried out in separation from other issues, does not require compromising on values and strategic interests on other fronts. Through leading by example, democratic countries can cooperate on environmental issues while countering China’s soft power goals.
COP15, a rare success?
The United Nations Biodiversity Conference CBD-COP15 in Montreal last December saw a historic deal to halt and reverse biodiversity loss under an increasingly rare collaboration between China and Canada. Canada co-hosted the second phase of the conference, which was moved from Kunming to Montreal after repeated pandemic-related delays.
The adoption of the landmark Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework was greeted with optimism from many delegates attending the conference. The framework mobilises $200 billion per year to protect 30% of the world’s land and of the ocean by 2030. Countries also pledged to phase out harmful subsidies in agriculture, fisheries, and fossil fuel sectors that drive biodiversity loss. The agreement is the largest international commitment in land and ocean conservation in history.
The celebration of a successful collaboration was an outlier against an otherwise testing time for Sino-Canadian relations. In the weeks leading up to COP15, Canadian intelligence services concluded that China interfered in Canada’s federal elections and its police charged an employee at Canada's largest electricity producer for spying for China. Canada also released its Indo-Pacific Strategy, in which the government described China as an “increasingly disruptive global power”.
Carving out areas of shared interest
The relative success of COP15 suggests there is still common ground for the west to cooperate with China on environmental governance despite heightened geo-political tensions. Cooperation can yield positive outcomes if both parties can identify an area of shared interest and create a working relationship with clear focus and sufficient communication.
Biodiversity collapse, a pressing human existential crisis, is a clear example of a shared interest. The world’s populations of mammals, birds, fish, amphibians and reptiles declined by 69% on average between 1970 and 2018, while approximately one million species out of eight million are threatened with extinction globally. The loss of biodiversity increases the risk of wildlife diseases spilling over into humans, threatens global food security and water resources, and undermines local communities’ livelihood and wellbeing.
China’s soft power goals
As with many other countries, the Chinese government has recognised that accelerated biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation poses major risks to the country’s development and security and is under mounting pressure to address the ecological crisis.
Democratic countries should also acknowledge the extent that cooperation with China on environmental issues serves Beijing’s soft power goals. At COP15, Chinese officials sought to raise the international profile of Xi’s signature vision of an “ecological civilisation” as part of efforts to “tell China's story well,” or in other words, strengthen China’s international discourse power. From Beijing’s perspective, holding discourse power allows them to articulate China’s worldviews, set the agenda in international arenas, and position itself as a “rule-maker” instead of a “rule-taker.” And, of course, the perception of power can be capitalised to boost the government’s legitimacy at home too. The achievements of COP15 have been framed as a victory of Xi’s ecological vision and China’s leadership in the international environmental scene.
Yet this may be a small price to pay to secure China’s cooperation. China is one of the most biodiverse countries and home to more than 35,000 species of higher plants, 6,000 species of vertebrates, and 10% of the world’s invertebrates. It also faces one of the most severe biodiversity declines due to industrialisation and urbanisation. China’s active contribution is crucial to global biodiversity conservation efforts.
Upholding accountability and transparency
COP15 is not the first UN environment conference hosted by China, but it was the first time China hosted a UN environment negotiation with such weight and international attention.57 It exposed the inexperience of China's presidency in leading a UN negotiation, while a perceived lack of preparation and the low visibility of Chinese officials also drew criticism from attendees who observed it as “a leadership vacuum”.
Crucially, the Chinese government’s limited engagement with the press made the “leadership vacuum” more evident. Generally, the host country of a UN conference is expected to hold regular press briefings to report on the progress of the meetings and answer questions from journalists. These briefings are vital to ensure the transparency, accountability and integrity of the negotiation progress. However, the Chinese presidency only appeared in a handful of irregular press conferences during the two-week summit in Montreal.
The lack of transparency also made it much harder for international civil society organisations to follow the progress of negotiations. Although China was able to forge consensus by putting forward a balanced final non-paper in the last days of the summit, observers felt like they were being kept in the dark. The Chinese government is more likely to see a free press as a hindrance, rather than an aid to a successful negotiation.
While the Chinese government engaged Chinese civil society groups during the COP15 process, such groups are customarily required to operate within the Chinese government’s red lines and help push its soft power agenda. As highlighted elsewhere in this publication, the Chinese government generally prefers to conduct negotiations at the nation state level rather than involving non-state stakeholders, over which it has little influence.
China’s presidency was also accused by several African countries, including the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Cameroon and Uganda, of forcing the agreement through despite DRC’s objection. Right before COP15 President Huang Runqiu announced the framework’s adoption, the DRC negotiator openly rejected the deal and demanded more biodiversity protection funding from developed countries to developing countries. After Huang disregarded the rejection on procedural grounds, the DRC then appeared to have withdrawn their objection after a closed-door discussion. Attempts to settle disputes behind closed doors risk undermining the procedural legitimacy of such agreements. Democratic countries should be aware of the risk and maintain oversight on the integrity of the proceedings.
As governments seek to cooperate with China on climate change, ensuring active media scrutiny and spaces for civil society engagement are vital to ensuring the transparency and integrity of the outcome.
Systemic constraints on China’s engagement
China’s insufficient understanding of multilateral negotiation and the bureaucratic constraints faced by Chinese officials caused the leadership shortcomings at COP15. While engaging with China, democratic politicians must understand that the UN's decision-making processes are fundamentally different from the Chinese governance system.
As noted by Li Shuo, Senior Global Adviser at Greenpeace China, Chinese officials may find the UN negotiation rule book and the tactics of lobbying, negotiating and shaping consensus unfamiliar. They are also restrained by bureaucratic politics and agendas at home, which leaves them little room to manoeuvre. Therefore, sufficient preparation and communication ahead of the official talks is essential to secure consensus and a smooth collaboration.
At COP15, China's attitude of flexibility and complaisance helped it overcome the leadership challenges. Its presidency was willing to give bigger roles for other countries, including Canada, to co-lead the talks, and the arrangement led to some critical breakthroughs in the negotiation.
Not compromising on values, but leading by example
Some argue that cooperating with China on environmental issues would allow Beijing to leverage the relationship to advance its interests in other fields. COP15 proves that this does not need to be the case. At the same time as leading a major multilateral agreement with China, Canada’s Foreign Minister Melanie Joly was able to set out the Canadian government’s Indo-Pacific Strategy – which seeks to counter China’s growing threats against Taiwan and criticises the Chinese government’s human rights abuses.
The experience of Montreal showed that environmental collaboration, if carried out strictly in separation from other contentious issues, does not require compromising on values and principles on other fronts. Crucially, international media security and civil society engagement should be present to ensure that values, such as transparency and freedom of speech, are upheld.
It has been considered that China's soft power gain through environment engagement may further boost Beijing’s legitimacy and empower its coercion. In that case, the democratic countries could seek to counter China by competition, and the most healthy and productive way to do so is to lead by best practice at home. As an example, the role of the United States at COP15 was heavily limited by the fact that it was not even a member of the Convention on Biological Diversity.
COP15 offers a lens to look beyond the zero-sum narrative on China. Democratic countries can both cooperate and compete with China simultaneously. A balanced use of both approaches is essential to addressing existential environmental threats to the planet.
Recommendations
Policy makers should continue to identify areas of shared interest for environmental cooperation with China. Clear separations between environmental issues and other issues can ensure that progress can be made without compromise on values or strategic goals.
Governments should set clear guidelines for safeguarding transparency and accountability in multilateral forums. Opportunities for press scrutiny and civil society engagement must be included when negotiating the structure of these meetings.
Officials should take into account China’s constraints. Negotiating tactics should include an awareness that Chinese officials often face bureaucratic constraints and have little room to manoeuvre while engaging in global environmental governance. Preparation and communication in advance are essential to ensuring consensus at the official conference.
Democratic countries must lead by example. By competing with China to set the standard for international action on environmental issues, democratic countries can counter the Chinese government’s use of the environment for soft power goals.