Standfirst: The Guiyang EcoForum, held every two years in the capital of China’s Guizhou Province, is next set to take place in July 2025, and the IFF’s Erik Solheim will be Chief Convenor. The forum is an important platform for promoting green development not just in China, but also globally.

(Yicai) Sept. 2 -- Erik Solheim, Vice Chair of the International Finance Forum and a leading figure on the China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development, recently announced his appointment as Chief Convenor on the Advisory Board of the 2025 Guiyang Eco Forum, which is scheduled to take place next July in the southwestern Chinese province of Guizhou, which is blessed with abundant nature, a mild climate, many ethnic minorities, and an impressive and fast-growing cloud computing industry.

Solheim, a former Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations (UN) and Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), noted that this is “the biggest and most important environmental festival in China.” The theme of next year’s forum will be ‘Together for a Beautiful China and a Beautiful World’. Solheim also emphasized that dealing with climate change is a global challenge as well as an opportunity, one that should bring the international community together to ensure a more sustainable future for all. 

The 2025 Guiyang Eco Forum is set to cover everything from the transition to renewable energy to efforts to reduce plastic pollution, protect endangered wildlife, and make cities more sustainable as the world continues to urbanize and as temperatures continue to rise. The forum will also revisit international commitments made during the Paris Agreement to achieve peak carbon emissions and eventually net-zero emissions. This gathering will be attended by key politicians, business leaders, think tanks, and academics from China and the rest of the world.

During the previous forum, held in 2023, China reiterated its commitment to the continued development of national protected nature areas and of promoting a more harmonious relationship between humans and nature. In recent years, the country has already achieved significant progress in combatting issues like water and air pollution, soil erosion, and deforestation, and can serve as a model for developing countries in other parts of the world who are seeking to overcome their own environmental challenges - Solheim noted that “China has gone to war against pollution and won.” 

Next year’s forum will also cover the latest environmental topics related to Guizhou, the rest of China, and the world beyond, and attendees will gather to forge new relationships and brainstorm new ideas for helping the world achieve its climate goals and mitigating the severest consequences of climate change.