Shenzhen delegates shared the city’s innovative experience in ecological environment protection and practices in building a beautiful city at a parallel session of the 27th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP27) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Egypt on Saturday.
China will build an international mangrove center in Shenzhen, President Xi Jinping said in a speech via video at the opening ceremony of COP14 (The 14th Meeting of the Conference of the Contracting Parties to the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands).
Zhang Yali, deputy director of the Shenzhen Municipal Ecology and Environment Bureau, said at the parallel session’s promotional event that mangroves have not only witnessed the young city’s rapid economic development, but also the development of the stopover site for international migratory birds, according to Shenzhen Special Zone Daily.
Each year, over 100,000 of about 200 types of migratory birds such as black-faced spoonbills, common spoonbills and Chinese egrets spend winter at Futian Mangrove Nature Reserve covering an area of over 300 hectares, according to Zhang.
Shenzhen has attached great importance to ecological environment protection.
Shenzhen’s green competitiveness ranked first among 289 Chinese cities, according to the 2021 Chinese cities green competitiveness index report released by the United Nations Industrial Development Organization and the United Nations Environment Program.
Shenzhen is committed to green and low-carbon development and achieving high-quality development at a lower environmental cost. Shenzhen has the lowest energy consumption and carbon intensity among Chinese megacities and completely eliminated general industrial and commercial use of coal.
Shenzhen is also devoted to the scientific layout of production, ecology and living space and the city explores innovative practices in various fields related to carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals, according to the report.
In terms of climate change, Shenzhen unveiled the country’s first set of green financial regulations and a guide to ocean carbon sink accounting.
Shenzhen has promoted green and low-carbon initiatives and green transportation. All of the city’s public buses and taxis are 100% electric, and is one of cities with the largest numbers of new energy vehicles.
Moreover, Shenzhen is building 28 nearly-zero carbon emission pilot projects to form a group of new scenarios applying green and low-carbon technologies.
The city has built 1,238 parks and 2,843 kilometers of greenways and promoted green infrastructure construction.
Zhang said it is necessary to pay attention to the harmonious coexistence of man and nature in urban development. “Shenzhen will accelerate the creation of a beautiful Chinese model of harmonious coexistence between human and nature. Shenzhen will take this session as an opportunity to strengthen exchanges and cooperation with global cities, work together to address climate change and improve the global ecological environment,” Zhang said.