I joined in a live interview with CGTN (China Global Television Network) on October 18th, 2023. This is a special event held during the 3rd Belt & Road Forum for International Cooperation.
I answered two questions and here is what I said.
Q1: Under the 8 major steps, Xi said China will integrate ports, shipping and trading services, and accelerate the construction of the New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor and Air Silk Road. What opportunities will this bring to both China and its BRI partners?
There are many opportunities for promoting sustainable development. Infrastructure is the one that most people are familiar with in the BRI, especially in transport and communication sectors. The projects in the BRI could encourage sustainable fisheries through careful planning and design, promote better port building and operation, and pave the way for clean energy generation, such as offshore wind farms. These infrastructures also bring about tourism opportunities, especially marine and coastal tourism.
To seize these opportunities, China and BRI countries can define clear and common sustainability standards for projects. These standards can also resonate with several major international environment issues. Collaboration on clean energy can contribute to the climate change mitigation while coordination on waste management will contribute to the global plastic treaty in negotiation.
Furthermore, although BRI is a huge initiative, we need to keep it in mind that indigenous knowledge in local communities are equally important. Full engagement with local community in decision-making can lead to more sustainable outcomes and ensure that local livelihoods benefit from the blue economy. When we promote sustainable tourism activities like birdwatching or whale watching, we need to rely on and respect the local communities in all BRI countries.
Q2: Compared with terrestrial ecological conservation, marine ecological conservation is actually more complicated. Tell us some of your views on how China and Belt and Road partner countries can work towards striking a balance between ocean protection and efficient utilization of marine resources.
International organizations and BRI can play a unique role in synthesizing the resources from research institutes and governmental departments. I would like to recommend one thing here – Sustainable Blue Taxonomy. This is like a catalogue that indicates what kinds of ocean-related industries can use the marine resources in a sustainable way, thus to reduce the pressures onto the ocean ecosystem.
The lack of practical classification standard for sustainable blue industries globally is an important factor for financial institutions and investors to identify and recognize sustainable blue economy industries. This, in turn, hinders the accurate and efficient allocation of capital to sustainable blue sectors.
WWF is developing a Sustainable Blue Taxonomy for China, and we believe it could be a good reference for BRI countries, too. We combined domestic and international guidance documents, such as the Green Industry Guidance Catalog, the Green Bond Catalog, and the European Union Taxonomy, into a comprehensive taxonomy.
Through this Sustainable Blue Taxonomy, banks can rethink about their investments to see whether they are friendly to the ocean, and financial supervisory departments can identify whether the “so-called” blue financial products in the market are really blue. With it, people can make profits from ocean, yet do not pose too much pressure on the ecosystem.