BEIJING (Reuters) – A United Nations biodiversity summit originally due to be held in China in October will now take place in May next year, a spokesman with China’s environment ministry said on Tuesday, after the event was postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic.
“The summit was scheduled to be held in Kunming in Yunnan in Oct. 15-28, but due to the coronavirus outbreak, preparation work was generally delayed,” said Liu Youbin, spokesman with the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, during a press briefing.
Nearly 200 countries will negotiate the text of a new global treaty on biological diversity during the summit, which will now take place over two weeks starting on May 17, 2021.
Reporting by Muyu Xu and David Stanway; Editing by Tom Hogue