Biodiversity talks in China's Kunming in April may be affected by COVID

The schedule of the second phase of the COP15 global biodiversity talks in the southwestern Chinese city of Kunming in April is "likely to be affected" by new COVID-19 risks, environment ministry spokesman Liu Youbin said on Monday.

The second phase was supposed to see the completion of a new post-2020 global deal on biodiversity protection, following on the first round of talks in Kunming last October.

A follow-up meeting scheduled for January in Geneva had already been cancelled as a result of a new wave of coronavirus infections caused by the Omicron variant.