"This is our 'gold and silver mountain', and it must be guarded." Early in the morning of May 24, Qin Ling, director of the state-owned forest farm in Guyang County, Baotou City, went to check in the forest as usual. The carbon sinks generated by these forests have been subscribed by many companies to offset the carbon emissions generated by their offices, meetings and other activities after being developed into digital carbon tickets for forests and grasses, opening up a "Inner Mongolia pathway" to achieve carbon neutrality.
On May 10, the 5,000-ton Baotou forest and grass digital carbon ticket applied to the "14th Winter" carbon neutrality officially completed the donation and cancellation process, which is the first time that the local carbon sink product in Inner Mongolia has been successfully applied to the carbon neutrality of a national large-scale event, marking another key step for the forest and grass digital carbon ticket.
The forest and grass carbon ticket is the certificate of the right to benefit from the carbon emission reduction of forest land. In June 2023, Baotou City developed the first 150,000-ton digital carbon ticket with 22,000 mu of forests from Guyang State-owned Forest Farm as the development object, becoming the first local carbon sink product in Inner Mongolia. At present, this digital carbon ticket has been subscribed by 32 enterprises inside and outside the region, with sales of more than 30,000 tons and a transaction amount of 2 million yuan.
"The hard-planted forests not only improve the ecological environment, but also achieve economic benefits, and the enthusiasm of forest farm workers to plant forests and protect forests is higher. We continue to invest the money from the sale of carbon tickets in ecological construction, and realize the sustainable development of ecological construction. Qin Ling said.
Feng Xiaodong, head of the reform, development and science and technology section of the Baotou Forestry and Grassland Bureau, said that China has pledged to strive to achieve carbon peak by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2060. To achieve carbon neutrality, it is the only way to reduce carbon emissions and offset the remaining carbon emissions with forest and grass carbon sinks. At present, the CCER (National Certified Voluntary Emission Reduction) forestry carbon sink project is the only forest and grass carbon sink project included in the national carbon market trading, most of which are used to offset part of the excess carbon emissions of key emission control enterprises, and Baotou forest and grass digital carbon ticket as a local carbon sink product, everyone can participate in the development, trading, enterprises, large-scale event organizers, the public, etc. through the purchase of carbon tickets to achieve zero carbon meetings, zero carbon activities, zero carbon office, and fulfill social responsibility. The two have their own focus and complement each other.
Inner Mongolia is the largest and most complete ecological function area in northern China, with a forest area of 357 million mu, ranking first in the country, and rich in forestry carbon sinks. "The forest and grass digital carbon ticket requirements are flexible, the development threshold is low, and the amount of developable resources is large, which is not only conducive to promoting ecological construction in reverse, but also makes good use of the rich ecological carbon sink resources in Inner Mongolia, which has extremely wide promotion significance." Kang Hong, chief engineer of the Forestry and Grassland Bureau of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and head of the Carbon Sequestration Bureau, said.
At present, Ordos City is taking Yijin Horo Banner as a pilot to promote forestry carbon ticket trading, and encourage small and micro enterprises, industrial parks, energy enterprises and other enterprises, units and individuals in the pilot area to purchase forestry carbon tickets to offset the carbon emissions generated by production and life. In the next step, Inner Mongolia will summarize and promote the experience of forest and grass digital carbon tickets in the whole region, and guide more voluntary emission reduction enterprises to fulfill their social responsibilities by purchasing carbon tickets, so as to help achieve the "double carbon" goal.