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Plastic pollution governance is a hot topic. CSOs’ contribution in driving practical changes is crucial, as CSOs propose comprehensive solutions and are the most viable force in pulling all stakeholders together.

Invited by China Institute for Marine Affairs, I presented our “continuous efforts towards a treaty effectively addressing plastic pollution”, in Workshop on International Policy Development of Marine Pollution Control, including Marine Plastic Debris and Sustainable Waste Management, APEC.

During the workshop, I heard many good research and social practices and summaries of legal frameworks and policies. On behalf of our global network, I proposed PRACTICAL POLICIES.

I started my presentation by introducing our team and key focuses, after all, this is the first time I present to the sector of nature resources. I also shared my observation on the not-so-fruitful INC-3 – the oil-producing nations are trying their best to delay the negotiation, wasting time of saving the environment, as well as of all participants, together with the huge amount of cost.

However, we are still strongly advocating for a high ambitious binding treaty. I introduced our 5 success criteria for the new plastic treaty, elaborating them one by one. There are: legally binding, specific about what states must do, gradual strengthening, incentivize participation and compliance, and ambitious. The presentation is quite technical. I will not explain details here.

We are trying our very best to advocate for a really effective treaty that can stop the troublesome plastic pollutions. It is not easy, but we need to push, hardly.

On Nov. 12th in Nairobi, Kenya, we held a side event with other three Chinese CSOs during the Plastic Treaty INC-3 (Intergovernmental Negotiation Committee, Third Session). The meeting is titled as “CSO’s Engagement in Plastic Pollution Governance in China”. The Director of Science Department of UNEP, and the Deputy Director of Solid Waste Management Department of Ministry of Ecology and Environment, delivered speeches in the opening session.

I tried my best to summarize the values that CSOs in China can create. It might be too optimistic if I say that local CSOs are professional and playing a critical role. In fact, they are still pre-mature. However, they should be seen, and the necessity that they should be nurtured and coached should also been noticed. Anyhow, they have a huge potential to drive positive changes in China and influence the world.

Below is my opening speech:

Your Excellencies Director Dr. Liu Jian, Mr. Wen Xuefeng,
Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen,
 
Good morning!
 
It is an honor for me to speak at this side event, “CSOs’ Engagement in Plastic Pollution Governance in China”. On behalf of World Wide Fund for Nature, WWF, as well as our three co-organizers, SEE Foundation, Shenzhen Zero Waste, ICNCE, I would extend my warmest welcome to you all.
 
First, let me briefly introduce the co-organizers:
You might be familiar with WWF through our global network covering most major environmental issues. To advocate for a treaty with harmonized and binding global rules, we provide technical solutions and create communication opportunities, like today.
SEE foundation is a most impactful local environment foundation, with many members of entrepreneurs. It aims to reduce the production of plastic by funding local CSOs and communication events.
Shenzhen Zero Waste addresses critical issues concerning plastic, chemical safety, and waste management. A successful case is that through their actions, the chemical compliance rate of yellow plastic duck toys sold on e-commerce platforms increased from 10 per cent to more than 90 per cent.
ICNCE, Institute of Carbon Neutrality and Circular Economy, supports the supply chain to use more recycled materials. It aims to reduce the carbon emission from consumption side and provide traceability of recycled plastics.
 
OK, let’s talk about how CSOs could contribute to the plastic pollution governance in China.
 
China holds a unique position in the global landscape of plastic pollution governance. With China’s significant plastic production and processing capacities, diverse plastic product categories, and highly developed logistic industry, I am confident that you would all agree, China’s role in tackling plastic pollution is crucial. Thus, understanding China, and exploring how CSOs can contribute to the plastic pollution governance, is also key in facilitating the process.
 
Compared with many other countries, in China, the government system takes more responsibility. It not only governs the administrative process, but also carries out a large amount of policy studies through its own institutes. Therefore, to advocate policies, CSOs must align with both the government’s agenda and its policy researcher’s interests. Fortunately, the Chinese government is very open in communicating environment issues with the world. For instance, there is a governmental-owned think tank called China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development, or CCICED in short, which specializes in policy research. Its members include domestic and international scholars and international organizations from various backgrounds, including WWF as an international NGO. Through the various channels of CCICED, WWF has clearly explained how the plastic pollution problem could impact on the society, economy and human health, we identified current policy gaps, and called for urgent national action plans. This is done through annual meetings held by CCICED and special policy studies working groups under it. Through conversing with ministers and even vice premiers, as a CSO work in China, WWF can play a vital role in building a communication bridge between China and the world.
Institutional arrangements from the government are the opportunities that CSOs should consider. Well-prepared policy research may eventually be adopted by the government. 
 
Thanks to the complete production industries, universally available mobile infrastructure and inexpensive logistic services, the e-commerce is extremely popular in China. Sitting in the Yangtze Delta region like Shanghai, people can buy almost anything worth more than 1 dollar online from adjacent cities and get a free shipping. 1 dollar, for commodity, package and delivery, I am confident that any possibility of these combination you could think of, contains plastic. This is a typical, if not unique, situation in China. Here comes the problem: as the market is so huge, business owners can easily use illegal or banned plastic packages. However, the quantity is too small for law reinforcement to notice. One of our co-organizer here, Shenzhen Zero Waste, worked with the e-commerce platforms to remove more than 100 million banned plastic lunchboxes. WWF is also exploring the possibility of applying EPR, especially DRS (deposit refund system) for raise the recycling rate of package.
 
What we see from this case is, China has its strong plastic production and developed e-commerce, which makes full plastic regulation hard to implement. CSOs can identify small but specific problems that are often neglected and solve it in a cost-effective way.
 
China has a long coastal line and plastic wastes can sometimes be found on beaches. SEE Foundation funded several local organizations that specialized in beach cleaning. These activities cater the demand of many corporate and individuals, who do not have much knowledge on plastic pollution, but would like to contribute to this issue. ICNCE also worked with fishery communities on collecting used fishing gears.
 
These beach clearing activities form a necessary complementary to actions taken by the governments. Despite its small scale, such kind of work serves as a perfect example of funding mechanisms for CSOs to reduce plastic pollution.
 
We must acknowledge the fact that the CSO development is still pre-mature in China. The activities carried out are still simple and direct, and there are huge potential roles that CSOs can play in studying policy in different level and areas, in driving changes of private sectors, and in benefiting local communities. WWF is committed to support the CSOs in building the capacity on theory of change and seeking best practices, so that this sector can provide constructive advises and practical solutions.
 
This side event today is a good opportunity. The CSOs working in China are eager to let the global plastic community see the efforts and would discuss what and how we can further contribute to the plastic pollution governance in China.
 
Once again, on behalf of WWF and our other three co-organizers for this side event, thank you for coming! And I look forward to an informative and enlightening meeting today.

Press Release from SEE Foundation (in Chinese)
https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/81UHvSBQDARujIIskbB5zg

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.

The CCICED Annual General Meeting (AGM) was eventually held offline this year, after a long COVID blockage. I attended the opening ceremony on Aug. 28th and two sub-forums on Aug. 29th, “Implementing Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework towards Harmony with Nature” and “Integrating Land and Ocean to Promote Collaborative Governance”. For someone like me who is keen to know the trend for the future of environment governance, it is quite enjoyable to listen to the “3-minutes each” reports and to converse with the top conservation leaders throughout the world.

Aside from the contents (which may be either close-door or visible in media reports), I also had some observations.

Observation 1: This grand event demonstrated the world’s continuous expectation in China in leading the worlds’ environment issues.

Despite all kinds of major global challenges in the last three years, including those in addition to COVID, this event still turned out to be a conservation gala. Chaired by Minister Mr. Huang Runqiu, AGM summoned top leaders of most key international organizations. People seemed to be very excited after the long interval, and meeting rooms were filled with appreciation and acknowledgement on China’s leadership especially in the eventual deal of Kunming – Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.

I assume, and nobody would object, that among all global issues, environment is the one for which China receives most applauds.

Observation 2: The speaker offered their most wisdoms.

Beside the congratulations on the achievements China has made in conservation and biodiversity, most CCICED members and speakers provided insightful and constructive advises, at least in open occasions I attended, on what China and the world should collaborate in the future. In the

Minister Mr. Huang also chaired the sub-forum we host, leading this session an “all-star” session. Our partner in fishery association was convinced that sustainable blue economy should be the real solution for the future fishery, and supply chain should also follow up.

Unfortunately, people also found the absence of several large countries. This would no doubt bring uncertainties in future, which is especially crucial in the environment topics that require global collaboration.

Observation 3: The “environment protection” issue does not exist any more, instead, it is only a new paradigm in development.

I have been realizing this fact since long, that environment protection is de facto nature-friendly development (however it is called), but in this AGM it appeared so obvious. Open forums covered issues like carbon (energy), technology, land/sea use, consumption, etc. and these all are key elements in development. Therefore, such discussions made the AGM inevitably comprehensive enough to touch most human activities.

Minister Mr. Huang and his deputies would agree with me, they mentioned in the evening policy summary session (they all worked till 21:30!) that, “it is always easy to focus on one specific issue, but challenging to realize these suggestions altogether”.

And Yimo say: “There is no such an issue called environment protection, but only sustainable development. Many people understand development but only a few advocate sustainability. The conservationists who understands the latter will eventually turn the tide.”

Some introduction of CCICED in ChinaDaily.
http://epaper.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202308/29/WS64ed15c6a310a478839f803e.html