It has been more than half a year since the official opening of the national carbon emission trading market. How is the current progress of my country's forestry carbon sink trading?
What problems exist?
In this regard, the reporter interviewed relevant people in the industry.
Forestry carbon sink has great advantages
The Ministry of Ecology and Environment released news that on December 31, 2021, the first compliance cycle of the national carbon emissions trading market ended successfully.
In the first compliance cycle of the national carbon market, a total of 2,162 key emission units in the power generation industry will be included, covering about 4.5 billion tons of carbon dioxide emissions in 2021. Based on the compliance volume, the compliance completion rate is 99.5%.
Liu Youbin, a spokesman for the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, said that since the launch of online trading, the national carbon market has been running smoothly as a whole, with companies' awareness of emission reductions increasing, and market activity steadily increasing.
“Carbon sink trading is a virtual product trading created by relying on policies and regulatory constraints to offset anthropogenic carbon emissions. From the perspective of the domestic market, carbon emissions allowance (CEA) trading is still the mainstay. Emissions (CCER) trading as a supplement." Chen Shaozhi, a forestry economics expert from the Chinese Academy of Forestry, told reporters that the first batch of more than 2,000 power generation companies were allocated carbon emission quotas, which means that China's carbon emission trading market has become a global market as soon as it is launched. Covering the largest carbon market in terms of greenhouse gas emissions.
"From the perspective of carbon allowance prices, the EU carbon price is about 60 euros/ton, while my country's carbon price is at the level of 50 yuan/ton, and there is a lot of room for growth in the future."
Carbon-negative technologies include afforestation/reforestation (forestry carbon sinks), biological carbon sinks, direct air capture, and enhanced weathering.
Afforestation/reforestation technology is the most economical negative emission technology, with a cost of $10/ton to $50/ton for CO2 removal; direct air capture technology is the most expensive, with a cost of several hundred dollars or more per ton of CO2 removal; biomass Energy + CO2 capture and storage technology is somewhere in the middle, with CO2 removal costing $100/ton to $200/ton.
Chen Shaozhi said that my country's terrestrial ecological carbon sink capacity is large, and the forestry carbon sink effect is good.
According to the calculation of the Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, from 2010 to 2016, my country's terrestrial ecosystem absorbed about 1.11 billion tons of carbon annually, absorbing 45% of the anthropogenic carbon emissions during the same period.
In addition, my country's important forest areas, especially the southwest forest area and the northeast forest area in summer, make a major contribution to carbon sequestration, which is also the result of my country's huge investment in restoring natural forest vegetation and strengthening plantation cultivation in the past 40 years.
Market Expansion Meets Bottleneck
At present, my country's forest carbon sink has begun to produce tangible economic benefits.
Taking Saihanba as an example, Chang Weiqiang, deputy chief of the forestry department of Saihanba Mechanical Forest Farm, told reporters that up to now, Saihanba Mechanical Forest Farm has issued 182,750 tons of certified emission reductions by afforestation carbon sinks, and has completed sales of 162,756 tons. ton, and realized an income of 3.14 million yuan.
Saihanba is located in the northernmost part of Hebei Province, on the southern edge of the Hunshandake Sandy Land.
More than 50 years ago, the state established a mechanical forest farm here to artificially plant trees and restore the ecology.
Through the efforts of several generations, the sandy land of Saihanba, which used to be full of yellow sand and sparsely populated, has become a sea of forests of one million mu, and the forest coverage rate has increased to 80%.
The huge carbon sink income of Saihanba plantation has become a vivid example of "lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets".
Chen Shaozhi said that at present, there are still bottlenecks to be broken through in increasing forestry carbon sink transactions.
The policy system and technical methods are not mature enough, which is a major problem to be solved urgently.
At present, the main dilemma is that the top-level design is unclear, the policy is uncertain, and the carbon trading market is not mature enough, which causes producers, operators and related institutions to know what to do, and carbon sink afforestation projects have certain risks.
Relevant departments have issued relevant documents for climate change, as well as relevant operational documents for carbon sinks.
Although these documents raised the importance of carbon sink afforestation, they lacked effective legal enforcement.
In June 2012, the National Development and Reform Commission issued the Interim Measures for the Administration of Voluntary Greenhouse Gas Emission Reduction Trading, which established the basic principles for the management of the government-led voluntary emission reduction trading system. A number of CCER methodologies have been formulated and filed, carbon sink accounting, monitoring and measurement, verification and verification mechanisms and related management methods have been established, and a carbon sink factor market system has been initially established.
Some entities and institutions report that the existing carbon sink accounting methods are obscure and difficult to understand and operate.
The low forest stock volume is also an urgent problem to be solved.
Among the actual forest stands in my country, 43% of the total volume per hectare does not reach 20% of the production potential of the forest land, 26% of the production potential of 20% to 50% of the production potential of the forest land, and only 31% of the production potential of the forest land is more than 50%.
The lack of comprehensive understanding of forestry carbon sinks in society is also a major problem restricting the sustainable development of my country's forestry carbon sinks trading.
On the one hand, forest plants are the reservoirs and buffers of carbon dioxide, so improving forest quality and accumulation is the fundamental way to increase forest carbon sinks; , forest degradation, and forest fires can turn forests into huge sources of carbon emissions, causing a large amount of biological carbon stored in forests to be rapidly released into the atmosphere.
Therefore, through scientific and orderly management of forests, the management level should be effectively improved, the carbon sequestration capacity and carbon sequestration capacity of forests should be continuously improved, the fixed time of carbon dioxide in forests should be prolonged, and carbon storage should be maximized.
Some business entities and the public only pay attention to how much carbon sinks existing forestry can sell, but ignore the future potential of forest carbon sinks and how to obtain more carbon sinks.
Multi-faceted efforts to solve problems
"Promoting the sustainable development of my country's forestry carbon sink trading requires multiple efforts." Chen Shaozhi said.
After the launch of the national carbon market in July 2021, the new mechanism has not been restarted except that the original CCER filing projects can be traded under specified conditions, and there are basically no forestry carbon sink projects trading.
He suggested that the CCER system and market transactions should be restarted as soon as possible to increase the market share of forestry carbon sinks, form positive incentives, and use more CCER to offset various scenarios other than quotas, allowing localities to achieve carbon peak carbon neutral constraints Develop a variety of forestry carbon sink products, explore the necessity and feasibility of incorporating forestry carbon sinks into the ecological compensation mechanism, and establish and improve the forest carbon sink financing mechanism.
"The global forest carbon storage accounts for about 77% of the global vegetation, and the carbon storage of forest soil accounts for about 39% of the global soil. The significant carbon sink capacity of natural ecosystems has been fully confirmed, especially in forests, grasslands, wetlands and other ecosystems. The system has great potential in exerting ecological service functions and improving carbon sinks. The development of carbon sequestration forestry has the advantages of low investment, high environmental protection benefits, good safety performance and renewable energy. It is a physical and chemical carbon sequestration method or other emission reduction methods. Incomparable. We should take the development of carbon sequestration forestry as the top priority to achieve the goal of carbon neutrality." Chen Shaozhi said.
Experts suggest that the ways to enhance the carbon absorption function of forests are afforestation, reforestation, restoration of degraded ecosystems, and establishment of agroforestry systems.
Forests can be managed sustainably, protecting carbon stored in existing forest ecosystems and reducing their emissions to the atmosphere.
Carbon replacement measures also need to be explored, replacing energy-intensive materials with durable wood forest products, using renewable wood fuels (such as energy plantations) and recycling harvesting residues for fuel.
In terms of relevant scientific research and technical support, it is necessary to study the emission reduction and sink increase capacity, cost-effectiveness and international compliance contribution of my country's ecosystems from different scales, strengthen the sharing of data resources, deepen the carbon measurement of my country's ecosystems, and establish a national-level carbon measurement system. ; Strengthen ecosystem positioning observation and environmental monitoring, establish China's carbon flux observation network system, and improve the prediction, early warning and emergency response capabilities in response to climate change.
At the same time, quantitatively evaluate the role of ecosystem activities such as forests, grasslands, wetlands, oceans, soils, and frozen soils in reducing emissions and increasing sinks, providing a scientific basis for effectively managing the role of ecosystem carbon sinks in peaking carbon and neutralizing carbon.
Chang Weiqiang told reporters that the Saihanba Mechanical Forest Farm is working on the verification and verification of the carbon sink emission reduction (about 1.2 million tons) in the second monitoring period (from 2015 to 2020), and actively strives for Beijing With the support of the Municipal Development and Reform Commission and the Beijing Environmental Exchange, the carbon sink trading will be integrated into the Beijing carbon market and strive to maximize the benefits of Saihanba's carbon sink.
Our reporter Huang Junyi