Canada's McKenna sees big role for China in protecting biodiversity

Canada's minister of environment and climate change, Catherine McKenna, has praised China for its achievements in biodiversity protection and said she expects the country to play a big role in promoting awareness of the biodiversity situation on a global level.

In an interview with China Daily, McKenna said she hopes China will set a target for the world in biodiversity conservation when it hosts the 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity in 2020.

"I'm very impressed to see what China is doing when it comes to the protection of biodiversity," she said.

McKenna said China is already protecting 18 percent of its land territory and about 90 percent of its ecosystem and critical species.

"Those are very impressive. And so I absolutely think that China has the ability to show the world that we can act and we need to act."

She said President Xi Jinping has called for the building of an ecological civilization in China, which stresses a new relationship between people and nature.

"That's a new way of thinking about things," she said. "It's a very important concept that China can help bring to the world."

According to McKenna, biodiversity protection could be an area for cooperation between the two countries, which both have large land masses and incredible iconic species.

China has a huge role to play in setting a new deal for biodiversity when it hosts the 2020 conference, she said, adding: "We are working with China to make sure that's a success."

McKenna said the world needs everyone to understand the importance of biodiversity, not just a small group of experts.

"When you talk about the animals we care about, that's our past, present and future. We need to take action."

She also said having targets for biodiversity protection is important, as that can help measure the work by each country.

China and Canada have been working closely on different issues related to climate change, such as carbon pricing, McKenna said.

"You have the biggest carbon market in the whole world," she said. "That's very exciting on electric vehicles and clean technologies.

"There's an opportunity for Canada and China to show that it's possible to take action on climate change. For that, you can make progress, and it's also good for your economy and creates good jobs."

The 24th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change will be held in Katowice, Poland, from Sunday through Dec 14. Countries will negotiate setting detailed guidelines to implement the 2015 Paris agreement.

Despite challenges in negotiations, McKenna said she is confident of finding solutions.

"It's going to be a lot of work," she said. "There are some issues that are challenging, but I'm very committed to work with Xie Zhenhua (China's special representative on climate change) to solve these challenges."