Anchoring the "double carbon" goal, Shaanxi works together to monitor and reduce emissions

Building ground-based automatic monitoring stations for greenhouse gases, advocating large-scale activities to achieve carbon neutrality, and promoting carbon labeling evaluation... In recent years, Shaanxi Province has actively promoted carbon emission reduction and carbon monitoring work in various places, and achieved phased results.

Proactive innovation to quickly and accurately monitor greenhouse gases

In Gaojia Village, Yaozhou District, Tongchuan City, a towering iron tower is particularly conspicuous. Different from other towers for communication purposes, in 2022, a new tenant will be moved into the tower here, the Gaojiashan Greenhouse Gas Ground Automatic Monitoring Station.

"One of the requirements for the construction of the automatic greenhouse gas monitoring station is that the height of the sampling port from the ground must be between 50 meters and 100 meters. This 60-meter-high tower just meets the requirements." Liu Ke, chief of the Atmospheric Noise Monitoring Section of Tongchuan City Environmental Monitoring Station, pointed to the iron tower in front of him and introduced it to reporters.

Liu Ke said that not only does the construction of a station have high requirements, but in the early selection process, conditions such as population density, distribution of industrial enterprises and weather around the station must also be considered. Renting ready-made iron towers can effectively reduce station construction costs and shorten construction time.

Walking straight into the monitoring station building of more than 20 square meters, Liu Ke picked up a used white plastic shell and popularized science to reporters. "This is the sampling filter head at the upper end of the iron tower. The gas enters from the lower end, passes through the U-shaped pipe, and comes out from the upper end. Its main function is to remove large particles and part of the moisture, and then allows our gas to pass through and enter the instrument." Liu Ke said.

After three-stage filtration, moisture, impurities, etc. are effectively treated. Next, the clean air enters the analytical instrument for simultaneous analysis of carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, and methane concentrations. The analytical instrument will be automatically calibrated every 12 hours to ensure the authenticity and accuracy of the monitoring data.

Fan Zhongtao, head of operation and maintenance of the carbon monitoring technical team at Tongchuan City Environmental Monitoring Station, said: "The accuracy of our monitoring is very high, almost reaching the level of ppb. The level of ppb is equivalent to a single grain of sand in the Forbidden City. Can be monitored."

Every 15 seconds, the three sets of carbon concentration data on the analytical instrument are updated once and transmitted to the National Environmental Monitoring Station in real time. There are currently four ground-based automatic monitoring stations in Tongchuan City that can accurately monitor greenhouse gas concentrations and changes. Not only that, Tongchuan City has also used drones and mobile vehicles to achieve mobile monitoring from the ground to an altitude of 100 meters. Through C14 monitoring, greenhouse gas emissions can be accurately traced.

As the first batch of basic pilot cities for carbon monitoring in the country, Tongchuan City has given full play to the advantages of scientific and technological resources in various fields in Shaanxi Province, and provinces and cities have joined forces. In response to the shortcomings in traditional greenhouse gas navigation monitoring methods, Tongchuan City has introduced high-precision greenhouse gas monitoring equipment and a real-time testing method for high-altitude hovering sampling by drones. The drone is used to carry the sampler and sampling pipeline to hover at a certain height from the ground. The high-precision greenhouse gas monitor set on the ground is used to achieve rapid and high-precision flight monitoring of carbon dioxide and methane, which greatly improves the working efficiency and accuracy of navigation monitoring.

Enrich tools to promote carbon reduction in large-scale activities

Only if the measurement is accurate can carbon reduction measures be more targeted and efficient. At the Shaanxi home promotion event of the 2024 "National Low Carbon Day", the event advocated carbon reduction in the whole society and the whole people, and advocated carbon neutrality in large-scale activities.

In order to promote the implementation of the initiative, the event organization took the lead in demonstrating and entrusting third-party organizations to conduct in-depth on-site research to calculate the results generated by the event from the number of participants, transportation, accommodation hotels, catering, venue layout and electricity facilities, meeting materials, etc. Greenhouse gas emissions. Offset the same amount of greenhouse gas emissions by purchasing emission reductions from green power projects outside the province.

Ma Jun, the fourth-level chief clerk of the Emission Permit Management Division of the Department of Ecology and Environment of Shaanxi Province, said: "After calculation, this year's Low Carbon Day promotion event generated a total of 4.7 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent in the preparatory stage, holding stage and final stage. By purchasing the CCER method, that is, China's certified voluntary emission reductions, offset the greenhouse gas emissions generated by the event, making this event carbon neutral."

Advocating large-scale activities to achieve carbon neutrality is a new measure taken by Shaanxi to promote carbon peak and achieve carbon neutrality goals in the past two years. The "Implementation Guidelines for Carbon Neutralization of Large-scale Activities in Shaanxi Province (Trial)" released on the same day of the event clarified that large-scale activities with 500 participants or more should be offset by purchasing carbon quotas and carbon credits or by building new carbon sinks. The greenhouse gas emissions actually generated by large-scale activities. Encourage key emission units included in carbon market management to save carbon quotas through measures such as strengthening energy conservation and consumption reduction to support carbon neutrality in large-scale activities. When the amount of carbon quotas, carbon credits, and carbon sinks used to offset is greater than or equal to the actual emissions generated by a large-scale activity, it can be determined that the large-scale activity has achieved carbon neutrality. Various activities and meetings with 50 or more participants and less than 500 participants can achieve carbon neutrality through self-commitment confirmation. Other activities and meetings encourage voluntary carbon neutrality.

"Through exploration in recent years, we have summarized ways to achieve neutrality such as reducing carbon at the source, donating carbon by enterprises, and absorbing carbon by forestry. For example, during the 14th National Games in 2021, our province will comprehensively use these three methods to achieve carbon neutrality in the Games. We will achieve carbon neutrality in accordance with the carbon neutrality implementation guidelines for large-scale events such as the 2021 Provincial Emission Licensing Skills Competition, the 2023 National Low Carbon Day National Home Event, and the 6.5 Environment Day." Zhao Yajun, the Sewage Discharge Permit Management Office of the Department of Ecology and Environment of Shaanxi Province, said.

Build a dense carbon reduction network through multiple means

In addition, Shaanxi actively promotes carbon labeling evaluation, and more and more low-carbon B & Bs are meeting tourists. The granular polysilicon products produced by Shaanxi Nonferrous Metals Group have obtained French carbon footprint certification. Liquan County, Xianyang City, has adopted a pilot agricultural and light complementary project to explore win-win results for photovoltaic power generation and grain production increase.

At the same time, Shaanxi is seizing the opportunity and actively integrating into the national pilot work on "double carbon" construction. Currently, Xixian New District, Shangluo City, and Tongchuan City have been selected as national deepening adaptive city pilots, and Xi'an City has been selected as national pollution reduction and carbon reduction collaborative innovation pilot cities, Yulin City and Xixian New District have been selected as national carbon peak pilot cities. Shaanxi has also provided models and demonstrations for the province's economic and social green and low-carbon development by releasing a low-carbon and zero-carbon pilot demonstration list and a carbon peak pilot project in the industrial sector.

Including carbon emissions trading, forestry carbon sinks, carbon capture, storage and utilization, and the construction of a carbon inclusive platform, Shaanxi is currently building a carbon reduction network to promote carbon peaking and carbon neutrality through diversified means.

Achieving the "double carbon" goal will not be achieved in a day and requires sustained efforts. This requires us not only to do a good job in greenhouse gas monitoring to provide scientific basis and specific guidance for carbon control and carbon reduction, but also to enrich our carbon reduction measures to integrate low carbon into daily production and life, become a national behavior, and become a social new trend.