Organizers announced Tuesday that a United Nations symposium on biodiversity will be held in Canada rather than China, making it the second big international event to be shifted from China due to the country’s harsh anti-coronavirus measures.
The summit will take place in December in Montreal, where the UN Secretariat for the Convention on Biological Diversity is situated, according to separate statements from the UN Secretariat and China’s Environment Ministry.
China, which is hosting this round of sessions, chose to shift them outside of the nation ‘because to the persistent uncertainty associated to the global pandemic,’ according to Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, the convention’s executive secretary.
The decision was taken ‘after comprehensively considering the pandemic scenario at home and abroad,’ according to the Chinese environment ministry.
Last month, China backed out of hosting the Asian Cup in 2023. It also postponed the 2022 Asian Games, a sporting event set to take place in Hangzhou in September, indefinitely.
To combat any epidemic, the country has adhered to a stringent ‘zero-COVID’ policy, which has curtailed international visitors and forced the closure of parts or all of the country’s cities on multiple occasions. Other big countries that have reduced limitations and moved toward living with the condition are increasingly critical of the approach.
The biodiversity conference resembles the well-known United Nations climate summit. Countries that have signed a worldwide agreement to protect the world’s plant and animal species gather on a regular basis to try to satisfy the pact’s aims.
The summit was supposed to take place earlier this year in Kunming, China, but it was postponed because to the pandemic.
According to the environment ministry and the United Nations secretariat, China will continue to serve as the summit’s president, and the subject and logo will stay unaltered.
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