Deepening Green Cooperation and Jointly Building a Green Future for the Belt and Road

On October 18, 2025, the Belt and Road Green Innovation Conference, hosted by the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, was held in Beijing. With the theme of "Driving Green Development Together", the conference aimed to build global consensus on green development and promote the in-depth integration of green investment and financing with green transformation. Sun Jinlong, Secretary of the Leading Party Members’ Group of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, attended the opening ceremony and delivered a keynote speech, emphasizing that green and low-carbon transformation is an inevitable path to promote global sustainable development, and reaffirming China's firm determination to accelerate green and low-carbon transformation and actively address climate change.

Sun Jinlong pointed out that while continuously advancing its own ecological civilization construction, China has actively participated in and led global environmental governance. Over the past decade since the proposal of the Belt and Road Initiative, China has always adhered to the concept of a community with a shared future for mankind, supported developing countries in their green transformation, continuously deepened practical cooperation in the field of green and low-carbon development, helped improve the environmental governance capacity of co-construction countries, and made green a distinctive feature of the Belt and Road construction.

At the conference, ministerial-level and other senior officials from countries such as Cambodia, the Maldives, and Pakistan shared their respective countries' green development experiences and challenges, and expressed their expectations for enhanced green cooperation with China. H.E.Dr. Eang Sophalleth, Minister of Environment of Cambodia, stated that green development is the inevitable choice to achieve common prosperity. He expressed gratitude for China’s replicable green development experiences and said that Cambodia will deepen transformation in areas such as green infrastructure, carbon credit mechanisms, and talent development.

The All-China Environment Federation was invited to participate in the conference. During the conference, representatives from the “Belt and Road”Eco-industry Cooperation Working Committee of the All-China Environment Federation held friendly talks with a delegation led by H.E. Mr. SUM Thy, Director General of the General Directorate of Policy and Strategy of the Ministry of Environment of Cambodia. The two sides conducted in-depth exchanges on topics such as green development, ecological and environmental protection industry cooperation, and regional sustainable development.

At the talks, representatives of the All-China Environment Federation introduced the overall work of the federation and the Belt and Road Green Brand Going Global Initiative, and elaborated on the strategic vision of promoting the internationalization of China's green industry and facilitating green technologies and capital to support the ecological development of co-construction countries.

The Cambodian side highly affirmed the positive role of the federation in promoting regional environmental cooperation, and introduced Cambodia's specific needs in areas such as urban solid waste collection and disposal, landfill construction, wastewater treatment, and investment in environmental infrastructure. It hoped to leverage the federation's platform to attract more Chinese green enterprises to invest and cooperate in Cambodia.

Both sides agreed that green development is an important direction of China-Cambodia cooperation and a core connotation of the Belt and Road construction. In the future, they will strengthen communication and practical connection, promote enterprises to conduct inspection and exchange activities in Cambodia, and deepen cooperation in areas such as project investment, technological cooperation, and green industry development.

In addition, the two sides also exchanged views on cooperation in projects related to the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and the communication mechanism of the Climate Change Conference. The federation invited senior Cambodian officials to visit at an appropriate time and invited H.E. Mr. SUM Thy to serve as the invited observ, to which the Cambodian side responded positively.