Zhenhua Xie

Zhenhua Xie served as Vice Chairman (Minister Level) of the National Development and Reform Commission, Minister of the former State Environmental Protection Agency, and Administrator of the former National Environmental Protection Agency. He was Vice Chairman for the Committee on Population, Resources and Environment of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) at its 12th session, a member of the Central Committee of the CPC at its 16th and 18th sessions, and a member of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection of the Communist Party of China (CPC) at its 15th and 17th sessions.

Minister Xie has long overseen environmental protection, resource conservation, energy-saving, and pollution reductions and climate change affairs in the People's Republic of China (PRC), and has thus made a great contribution to the green, low-carbon and sustainable development and ecological civilization progress in the PRC, as well as to the global environment and climate governance. As the head of the Chinese negotiation delegation to the UN Climate Conferences for more than a decade since 2007, he played a prominent role in the adoption, signing and entry into force of the Paris Agreement, as well as in the adoption of the implementation rules of the Paris Agreement. He has also promoted concrete cooperation in energy conservation, emission reductions and green and low-carbon development between the PRC and more than 30 countries, regions and international organizations, and helped train over one thousand officials and technicians working in the field of climate change for more than 100 developing countries.

Minister Xie received GEF Global Leadership Award in 2002, UNEP Sasakawa Environment Prize (the highest prize on environment protection in the UN system) and World Bank Special Green Award in 2003, Alliance to Save Energy- Energy Efficiency Visionary Award in 2009, and WWF Livable Planet Leadership Award in 2015 and Lui Che Woo Sustainability Prize in 2017.