On December 3, COFCO Group Chairman Frank Ning attended the side event of “China Corner” at the UN Climate Conference in Paris and delivered a keynote speech.
Global climate change concerns the survival and development of all human beings. As the user and processor of global natural resources, the agro-product industry is most vulnerable to global climate change. Higher temperature and extreme weather events are impacting the sufficiency of grain supply and stability of grain price, resulting in the regional and structural imbalance of agro-product production and consumption on a global scale. As a leading global foodstuffs conglomerate, COFCO is delivering grains and foods to consumers in a more effective manner through consolidation of agro-products’ global value chain and enhancement of efficiency while reducing the impact of production and processing on the environment so as to lead the whole industry in pursuit of sustainable development.
At present, COFCO sets the objective of significantly increasing the energy utilization efficiency and reducing the emission of pollutants, continues to push for technological advancement, energy efficiency upgrade, water conservation, environmental protection and low-carbon growth, strives to establish sustainable long-term management and operation mechanisms, and accelerates enterprises’ transition to frugal, efficient, green and low-carbon model.
COFCO practices the comprehensive utilization of agro-products such as biomass energy to achieve recyclable development in countries including Brazil, Argentina, and China, replaces fossil fuel with ethanol fuel converted from non-food crops, cuts down greenhouse gas emission caused by burning fossil materials, saving nearly 2.8 million tons of petrol and reducing 6.3 million tons of carbon dioxide emission every year. As the first company to examine carbon footprints of agro-products’ life cycle in the industry, COFCO is engaged in the research and development of comprehensive use of biogas slurry so as to develop ecology-friendly agriculture.
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change was signed in 1992 by over 150 countries. The twenty-first session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 21) took place from 30 November to 11 December 2015 in Paris. The side event of “China Corner” invited domestic and foreign renowned enterprises, governments and organizations to join in the discussion of opportunities and challenges faced by enterprises in pursuing low-carbon growth under the current economic situation, to explore how enterprises can achieve energy conservation and emission reduction as well as business growth simultaneously, and to examine forest protection, low-carbon city and the development and mechanism innovation of low-carbon charity in multiple fields.
