https://www.cas.cn/cm/202307/t20230727_4955185.shtml
On July 26, the Scientific Report on Remote Sensing Assessment of Global Carbon Emissions from Anthropogenic Sources and Carbon Balance in Terrestrial Ecosystems (hereinafter referred to as the Scientific Report on Remote Sensing Assessment of Global Carbon Emissions and Carbon Balance) was released in Beijing. The report, prepared by the CAS Institute of Space and Astronautical Information Innovation (hereinafter referred to as ASI), utilized satellite remote sensing technology to assess the global and major countries’ anthropogenic carbon emissions and terrestrial ecosystems’ carbon revenues and expenditures.
The report shows that global greenhouse gas emissions have not been effectively controlled, and that atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations have continued to rise at an average growth rate of about 6 parts per thousand per year over the past 10 years, and that the trend of rising global carbon dioxide concentrations has not slowed down significantly, even during the COVID outbreak. The accelerating trend of global forest destruction over the past 40 years has not been curbed, forest area continues to decline, and global land-use change produces an average of about 3.2 billion tons of carbon dioxide emissions per year, which is the second-largest source of emissions after fossil fuel carbon emissions.
It reports that China has implemented large-scale afforestation ecological projects, and land use change is a net carbon sink effect, fixing nearly 400 million tons of carbon dioxide annually, effectively reducing global land use carbon emissions. Satellite-based assimilation inversion results show that the global terrestrial ecosystem has absorbed an average of 13.7 billion tons of carbon dioxide per year over the past 10 years. Among them, China’s terrestrial ecosystem absorbed 1.3 billion tons of carbon dioxide annually, accounting for about one tenth of the world. The global land soil organic carbon stock is also showing a gradual increase trend, the global soil absorbed about 1.3 billion tons of carbon dioxide per year in the past 40 years, and China implemented large-scale conservation tillage and ecological management initiatives, the soil carbon sequestration rate is the highest, accounting for about one quarter of the world.
According to Wu Yirong, academician of CAS and president of Space and Astronautical Academy, this monitoring report shows that, on the one hand, China’s active energy-saving and emission reduction measures have been effective, and China has reversed the rapid growth of carbon dioxide emissions in the last 10 years; on the other hand, China has implemented large-scale tree planting, returning farmland to forests, forestation, and protective tillage and other active ecological management measures, and ecosystems continue to enhance the capacity for carbon sequestration. Satellite monitoring has also found that China’s net carbon emissions have shown a decreasing trend in the past 10 years, indicating that China’s carbon neutrality goal has made important progress.
According to Wu Yirong, satellite remote sensing has the advantages of objective, continuous, stable, large-scale and repeated observation, and is an indispensable technical means for high-precision and fine-resolution monitoring of the global carbon cycle. At present, many countries and organizations around the world are vigorously developing the monitoring and verification support capacity for greenhouse gas emissions, and the development of China’s independent satellite remote sensing capacity for global carbon inventory is a matter of urgency. China will launch the next generation of carbon satellites in 2025, which can monitor the global atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration with higher precision and efficiency, and will further improve the monitoring capability of China’s domestic satellites in terms of atmospheric greenhouse gas concentration, anthropogenic carbon emissions, carbon sinks of terrestrial ecosystems, etc., and provide Chinese autonomous technical means for global carbon inventory and China’s “dual carbon” goal. It will further improve the monitoring capability of China’s domestic satellite in terms of atmospheric greenhouse gas concentration, anthropogenic carbon emissions and carbon sinks in terrestrial ecosystems, and provide China’s own scientific data for the global carbon inventory and China’s “dual carbon” goal.