Yuyang District actively promotes forestry carbon sink trading-air can sell money and forest and grass can be realized

Managing the forest well to "sell air" will not only help achieve the "double carbon" goal, but also earn a lot of money. This is a good business for "Green Yuyang".

Recently, an interview delegation from Saishang Environmental Protection Century Tour visited Xiaojihan Forest Farm in Yuyang District to visit the process of exploring "economic value" in "ecological greening" here.

Explore transactions and harvest the first bucket of gold in "selling carbon"

In the forest farm in early autumn, there is a touch of coolness in the breeze. Rows of tall and straight pine trees merge into a forest of tens of thousands of acres. The lush branches and leaves block the sky. The fresh air is filled with the fragrance of soil and vegetation, and bursts of pine waves play a wonderful movement.

This forest farm has not only made indelible contributions to the local process of preventing wind, fixing sand and maintaining water and soil, but also brought continuous economic benefits to the local area in the carbon sink trading market that has emerged in recent years.

"The forest and green area of Yuyang District ranks first in the city, and most of the forest areas belong to middle and young forests and are in a vigorous growth period. The forest carbon sequestration capacity is in the growth period and peak period. There are excellent basic conditions for developing forestry carbon sinks." Zhang Shengsheng, deputy director of the Forestry Bureau of Yuyang District, said.

In 2021, Yuyang District established the province's first carbon sink financial service center, and issued the first batch of 3 forestry carbon coupons in December of that year. During the monitoring period, the carbon emission reduction was 5747 tons, worth more than 144,000 yuan.

Carbon coupons are certificates of income rights to carbon emission reductions, which are equivalent to the carbon fixation and oxygen release function of a forest as an "ID card" for asset transactions. The success of the first transaction allowed Yuyang people to see the "mountains of gold and silver" hidden in the green waters and green mountains.

"This type of carbon ticket can effectively help the development of village collective economy. Taking the 80 poverty-stricken villages in the district as an example, in the future, each village collective joint-stock economic cooperative will integrate 5000 acres of forest and grass resources and apply to the forestry department for issuing forestry carbon ticket. Calculated by calculating a carbon sink of 0.2 tons per mu and 50 yuan per ton, the annual income can be stable by more than 50,000 yuan." Zhang Shengsheng said.

Build a platform for Yuyang's "green carbon" to go nationwide

In order to further open up the monetization channel, Yuyang District has actively carried out the construction of CCER (National Certified Voluntary Emission Reduction) components of the forestry carbon sink monitoring and trading system and the forestry carbon sink smart platform. This platform can not only realize online and transparent carbon sink trading, but also effectively reduce transaction costs, improve transaction efficiency, and provide strong technical support for carbon sink trading.

"Through the CCER trading platform, we can promote Yuyang's 'green carbon' to the whole country, better offset the settlement of carbon emission quotas in the national carbon emissions trading market and local carbon emissions trading market, carbon neutrality in large-scale activities, and corporate greenhouse Gas emissions." Zhang Shengsheng said.

At the same time, in order to solve the measurement problem, Yuyang District hired the Survey, Planning and Design Institute of the State Forestry and Grassland Administration to evaluate and measure the forest carbon sink reserves in four areas including Xiaojihan State-owned Forest Farm, and to conduct a comprehensive investigation of the distribution, quality, ownership, protection level, etc. of forests and forests in the monitored area, and formed a forest carbon sink assessment report in the monitored area, which provided a scientific basis for calculating the scale of carbon sink and the development of carbon coupons, and laid a foundation for conducting carbon sink trading.

"In May 2023, we signed a forestry carbon sink trading cooperation agreement with CNOOC Power Investment Co., Ltd., trading 200,000 tons of forestry carbon sinks and a transaction volume of 10 million yuan. It has opened a new page for our carbon sink trading work." Zhang Shengsheng said proudly.

Scientific planning, carbon sink benefits increase year by year

In recent years, Yuyang District has explored the establishment of a forestry carbon sink reserve mechanism, completing 300,000 acres of forest every year, building 100 kilometers of ecological corridors, greening and beautification more than 100 places such as "three modernizations and one forest", beautiful villages, and "micro parks", steadily promoting the greening and exchange around us.

The district has also established a participation mechanism for enterprises in the construction of carbon sink forests, including enterprise investment in the construction of carbon sink forests as important investment promotion matters, exploring the adoption of an enterprise-land co-construction model, and encouraging large-energy-consuming enterprises to cooperate with local governments to implement carbon sink forest construction projects. Regularly invite professional institutions to conduct carbon sink capacity assessments of the carbon sink forests created by enterprises, accumulate corporate carbon sink indicators year by year, and use them as enterprise carbon sink forest indicator reserves for enterprises to extract or replace energy consumption indicators.

"At the same time, we also actively guide organizers of large-scale events and conferences to purchase carbon tickets to create zero-carbon events, zero-carbon conferences, and zero-carbon activities; advocate personal low-carbon travel and enhance environmental awareness in the whole society." Zhang Shengsheng said.