Exploring plausible contributions of end-use harvested wood products to store atmospheric carbon in China

Abstract

The lateral transfer of carbon from forests to end-use Harvested Wood Products (HWPs), such as furniture and buildings through harvesting and industrial processing, creates an end-use HWPs carbon pool. This carbon pool serves as a substantial storage for atmospheric carbon dioxide, thus contributing to the mitigation of greenhouse gas effects. As new wood products enter this carbon pool and old products are disposed of upon reaching the end of their service lives, monitoring the carbon inflow and outflow allows for assessment of the size of HWPs carbon pool. Numerous factors, including climate change, population, and economy, significantly influence the supply and demand for wood products, consequently affecting the size of this carbon pool. Therefore, incorporating crucial factors to project plausible futures of carbon stock in HWPs is essential for predicting land-atmospheric carbon exchange and regional carbon budgets. In this study, we compiled and analyzed historical records of wood production and trade data, outlined their plausible futures using a recursive dynamic economic equilibrium model, and employed a product-type and service-life based accounting approach to quantify the HWPs carbon pool in China. Our findings indicate that from 1961 to 2020, the end-use HWPs carbon pool in China functioned as a net annual carbon sink, sequestering 14.9 Tg C of carbon per year and accumulating a total of 893 Tg C, with 76% stored in furniture products. The model predictions suggest that the HWPs carbon pool could potentially sequester carbon up to 2979 ± 806 Tg C by 2070.