International Symposium on Building a World-Class Eco-Metropolis

July 17, 2023

Aiming to align the megacities’ green development with the new Global Biodiversity Framework at the UN Convention on Biological Diversity’s COP 15 and building world-class eco-metropolis by joint efforts, the Paulson Institute Beijing Representative Office, in partnership with Shenzhen Foundation for International Exchange and Cooperation (SFIEC), successfully cohosted an international symposium at Shenzhen on May 30, 2023.

Wendy Paulson, together with the Deputy Secretary-General of Shenzhen Municipal Government, Ireland’s Ambassador to China (who co-launched the Ambassadors for Nature initiative in 2022), and the Chairman of SFIEC, delivered the opening remarks. The event created an opportunity for more than 100 Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area audiences to learn deep insights and innovative solutions from twenty distinguished international and Chinese speakers from government departments, international organizations, top educational institutions, think tanks, and enterprises. The topics covered biodiversity protection and eco-friendly infrastructure in megacities, how market-based financing mechanisms and green financial products fill the funding gap needed for nature conservation, and how financial institutions and enterprises can minimize the impact of their business activities on nature. To our great delight, the feedback from partners and participants has been very positive and encouraging.

The Shenzhen event also demonstrated great teamwork across programs in support of PI’s core agenda. Rose and Terry facilitated brilliant sessions in which the key findings of the Financing Nature report were highlighted, and the excellent work of the Paulson Prize was introduced during the panel discussion. Rose pointed out that “human social and economic activities are fundamentally dependent on natural capital, including biodiversity.”

“We should jointly promote the high-quality development of green cities, explore the best and optimal path for biodiversity protection in cities, and contribute wisdom and solutions to sustainable development in China and globally.”
– By Ren Yao, Deputy Secretary-General of Shenzhen Municipal Government

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