The UN biodiversity summit in Kunming, southwest China's Yunnan Province is "an unmissable opportunity for the world" as it set a new direction for global biodiversity conservation, Director General of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) Marco Lambertini has said.

The summit chaired by China passed the Kunming Declaration on joint efforts to halt and reverse the loss of biodiversity.

"The declaration was strong in committing to reverse nature loss by 2030," Lambertini told CGTN in an exclusive interview. "And that's really important that we set a date so that we all focus on delivering that plan by a certain timeline, which has to be the end of this decade. [The] declaration was strong in recognizing the gravity of the situation and was strong in making the connection between both nature and climate change, because the two are very connected." 

When asked whether countries should make biodiversity a priority that compares with COVID-19, the economy or jobs, Lambertini said, "Climate change and natural laws are global issues and everyone needs to be playing their part." 

Both developed and developing economies, he said, should find their own roles.

He said China's decision to invest 1.5 billion yuan for conservation efforts gives developing economies much-needed confidence to spur biodiversity efforts. But a concerted push by all parties is needed to meet the financing gap.

"This is a new set of pledges, which is super important, and gives confidence to the developing economies to embrace an ambitious nature conservation agenda," Lambertini said. "But let's also highlight that what is needed is also a redirection of the current public subsidies and private investments from supporting activities harmful to nature, to actually shifting those incentives, those subsidies, those investments towards sustainable practices.

"So these shapes will only happen if they mean public and private investments are shifting as well. That's the other dimension of the financial challenge; on one hand to make more money available for national conservation, on the other hand, shifting and redirecting the economic flows."  

According to Lin Li, director of global policy and advocacy at WWF International, the funding gap to reverse the decline in biodiversity by 2030 is estimated at more than $700 billion per year.

WWF was the first international conservation organization invited to work in China. It has been active here since 1980, when George Schaller arrived to work with Chinese scientists on giant panda conservation. Today, WWF China has about 110 staff working on over 40 projects, from restoring the Yangtze River wetlands to environmental education and panda conservation.

Talking about China's efforts in conserving biodiversity, Lambertini told CGTN that China had embraced a stronger domestic agenda on biodiversity conservation. 

"I have the honor to serve on the China Council for International Cooperation Development and Environment. And I have witnessed myself the increased commitment of China in conserving biodiversity at the domestic level," he said.

He added China could expand influence abroad through Chinese companies working overseas and public and private investment to embrace a nature-positive goal by the 2030 target date.