How does China succeed in absorbing more pollution rather than producing it? It’s simple: by planting more trees. In this way, Chinese government is trying to mitigate the pollution effect. An international team of researchers has identified two areas, whose CO2 absorbtion has been highly underestimated. These two areas combined represent over 35% of Chinese Carbon Tank. Nowadays China is the 1st CO2 world’s producer and is therefore responsible for the 28% of global emissions.
China is one of the major global emitters of CO2 but how much is absorbed by its forests is very uncertain
IAP scientist Jing Wang
The land biosphere over southwest China, by far the largest single region of uptake, represents a sink of about -0.35 petagrams (billion tonnes) per year, representing 31.5% of the Chinese land carbon sink. The land biosphere over northeast China, the researchers say, is seasonal.
It takes up carbon during the growing season but emits carbon otherwise.
Its net annual balance is roughly -0.05 petagrams per year, representing about 4.5% of the Chinese land carbon sink.
What is China trying to achieve?
According to professor Yi Liu of the IAP China is trying to level off within 2060.
Achieving China’s net-zero target by 2060, recently announced by the Chinese President Xi Jinping, will involve a massive change in energy production and also the growth of sustainable land carbon sinks.
professor Yi Liu
President Xi Jinping has also announced that there will be some great improvements in energy production such as the growth of sustainable Carbon sources. Chinese government has planted billions of trees to tackle desertification and soil erosion in order to establish more paper and timber industries. Indeed Trees will be playing a crucial role, because the more they will grow the more CO2 pollution they will be able to absorb.
