By Paul Davies, Bridget Rose Reineking and Andrew Westgate

At the 19th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, President Xi Jinping asserted his country’s emerging leadership in environmental stewardship and pledged to build a “beautiful China”. In his speech to the 2,300 delegates and guests assembled for the Congress’s opening session, President Xi lauded China’s burgeoning role as a global marshal of environmental reform.

Xi’s speech follows major efforts to reduce energy consumption and conserve resources across China — such as green finance initiatives facilitating lending to firms in environmentally friendly sectors; programmes for the development of alternative energy sources; and efforts to strengthen and enforce environmental laws and regulations. President Xi pointed to these efforts and proclaimed that China’s pursuit of sustainable development is both paying off domestically, and setting an example globally.