Lishui City, Zhejiang Province, which is rich in forest carbon sequestration resources, announced the establishment of forest carbon sequestration administration on December 22 to explore a successful path to realize the value of forest ecological products. This is the first municipal administrative organization responsible for forest carbon sequestration management in China.
The first financial reporter learned from Lishui forestry bureau that in August this year, the Editorial Committee of Zhejiang Province issued a document and approved Lishui to set up a separate Municipal Forestry Bureau, hang the brand of Lishui forest carbon sequestration Administration Bureau and implement joint office.
“To a large extent, we established this institution to promote forest carbon sequestration accounting and forest carbon sequestration trading, so as to promote the value transformation of forest ecological products and increase farmers’ income.” Liao Yongping, director of Lishui Forestry Bureau, said that the establishment of forest carbon sequestration administration is also a major measure to promote high-quality green development in Lishui.
Lishui City, with “nine mountains, half water and half farmland”, has a forest area of 20.763 million mu, a forest coverage rate of 81.7%, and a forest reserve of nearly 100 million cubic meters, accounting for one quarter of the total forest reserve in Zhejiang Province. Lishui has always been at the forefront of the country in the value transformation of ecological products and the reform of forest right system. As a leading area in the national collective forest reform, Lishui took the lead in exploring and innovating typical experience such as forest right mortgage loan, forest right “IC” card, forest land management right transfer certificate and “one picture” of forestry informatization.
“Lishui’s biggest advantage lies in ecology, and the biggest ecological support lies in forests. Forests are not only reservoirs, money banks, Shenzhen Agricultural Products Group Co.Ltd(000061) banks, but also the largest carbon sink reserves.” Liao Yongping said.
Cui Shufen, member of the Central Economic Special Committee of the Jiusan Society and professor of Lishui University, said that with the opportunity of the establishment of the forest carbon sequestration authority, Lishui can boldly explore the standards and market construction of carbon sequestration trading, provide some replicable Lishui experience and meaningful examples, and contribute to the improvement of national carbon sequestration capacity and the realization of the value of ecological products.
In 2020, Lishui Ecological Environment Bureau organized the preparation of the carbon sink inclusive methodology for forest management in Lishui City, Zhejiang Province. According to this methodology, the total area of forest management carbon sequestration inclusive benefit project in Xianliang town is 1121.13 hectares, with a total carbon sequestration of 51666.81 tons of CD2 equivalent in 10 years and an average annual emission reduction of 5166.68 tons of CO2 equivalent, which can bring millions of yuan of potential carbon sequestration benefits to Xianliang town every year.
In November this year, Xianliang town did taste the sweetness of carbon sequestration trading. That month, the on-site promotion meeting for the construction of “waste free city” in Zhejiang Province was held in Lishui. The organizer of the conference purchased 22.72 tons of certified carbon sink emission reductions from Xianliang town at the price of 100 yuan per ton, thus realizing the “zero carbon” conference and green conference. Lishui Ecological Environment Bureau issued a carbon neutralization certificate for this transaction.
Speaking of carbon emission reduction, over the years, people have focused on the reduction, transformation and upgrading of high-carbon industries, such as reducing the total consumption of coal, eliminating production capacity such as steel, cement and building materials, energy transformation and building low-carbon industries, but pay little attention to carbon sequestration.
Forest carbon sequestration has multiple benefits. Taking the “Qinghai Huangshui large-scale forest farm carbon sequestration afforestation project” as an example, Yi Lubei, deputy director and senior engineer of Qinghai Forestry Carbon Sequestration service center, told the first financial reporter that the total area of the project is 584000 mu. It is estimated that the total carbon sequestration income of the whole project in the period (100 years) is about 1.08 billion yuan, and the input-output ratio reaches 120%.
It is estimated that after the implementation of the carbon sequestration afforestation project of Huangshui large-scale forest farm in Qinghai Province, the local forest coverage will increase from 30% in 2015 to 36% in 2020. The project also provided 35000 job opportunities, and the per capita income of farmers participating in afforestation projects such as land preparation, planting and watering increased by more than 12000 yuan.
However, the first financial reporter also learned from recent interviews in Qinghai, Jiangxi, Fujian and other places that forest carbon sequestration projects still face many difficulties in promoting them.
According to yilubei, since there is no biomass estimation method for young forest of carbon sink afforestation tree species, the “Qinghai Huangshui large-scale forest farm carbon sink afforestation project” adopts the full harvest method in the calculation of carbon sink at the initial stage, but the accuracy has to be discounted. At present, the construction of biomass estimation method for young forest of afforestation tree species of the project is under way.
Li Mengchen and Li Yang, two experts from the International Research Institute of green finance of the Central University of Finance and economics, also said on the 22nd that the current low carbon sink price in the market can not meet the labor cost of long-term operation of forest land; For companies that expect to carry out large-scale forest land operation on behalf of others, the excessively scattered plots have raised the professional threshold of operators and buried hidden dangers for the stability of long-term carbon sink supply in the future.
In addition, carbon sequestration projects also generally have problems such as unclear property rights and incentives, insufficient legal construction, mismatch between accounting system and forest growth, and urgent improvement of trading system. From the buyer’s point of view, at present, the national carbon trading market is mainly open to high carbon emission industries such as power. The number of qualified buyers in the trading market is strictly limited and controlled, and the volume of buyers and sellers cannot be matched.
On November 25 this year, the State Forestry and grassland administration stated in its reply on “suggestions on exploring and improving the path of forestry carbon sequestration trading to boost the development of ecological forest industry”, that the measures for the administration of Carbon Emission Trading (for Trial Implementation) has clearly incorporated forestry carbon sequestration into the national carbon emission trading mechanism, together with the documents such as the methodology of carbon sequestration afforestation project prepared by the State Forestry and grassland administration, It has laid an important foundation for the development of forestry carbon sequestration project of voluntary greenhouse gas emission reduction (CCER) in China.
According to the introduction of the State Forestry and grass administration, it will improve fiscal and tax incentives, market transaction rules and policies, combined with the comprehensive establishment of the forest head system responsibility system and the construction of the national forest city. When formulating and improving the forest head system assessment system and the national standard of the national forest city evaluation index, it will consider incorporating forestry carbon sequestration into the evaluation index. At the same time, explore the path and mode of asset securitization of ecological products.
The first financial reporter learned from Lishui forestry bureau that the city has planned to create China’s “carbon neutralization demonstration zone” and will start the establishment of zero carbon demonstration counties in Longquan, Qingyuan and Jingning counties. In the future, Lishui forest carbon sequestration administration will improve forest quality and forest stock, increase forest carbon sequestration reserves, and explore carbon accounting and carbon trading mechanisms through forest resource protection, land greening and afforestation.
(First Finance)
