Harvested Wood Products as a Carbon Sink in China, 1900⁻2016.

Luyang Zhang,Tianyuan Song,Yankun Sun,Jiaqi Xu

doi:10.3390/ijerph16030445

Abstract

The use of harvested wood products (HWPs) influences the carbon flux. China is both the major producer and trader of HWP, so estimating the carbon stock change of China’s HWP is important to help curb climate change. Accurate reporting and accounting of carbon flows in the HWP pool is needed to meet greenhouse gas monitoring and climate change mitigation objectives under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Paris Agreement. This study applied production approach (PA) to estimate the carbon stock change of China’s HWP from 1900 to 2016. During the estimating period, the carbon stock of HWP in use and deposed at solid waste disposal sites (SWDS) were 649.2 Teragrams Carbon (TgC) (346.8 TgC in wood-based panels, 216.7 TgC in sawnwood and 85.7 TgC in paper & paperboard) and 72.6 TgC, respectively. The carbon amount of annual domestic harvest HWP varied between 87.6 and 118.7 TgC. However, the imported carbon inflow increased significantly after the 1990s and reached 47.6 TgC in 2016, accounting for 46% of the domestic harvest of that year. China has great mitigation potential from HWP and use of this resource should be considered in future strategies to address climate change.

Highlights

Forests function as carbon sinks and stores, with the potential to mitigate climate change
Fixed carbon transfers from forests to harvested wood products (HWPs) through deforestation and there is a lag in carbon emissions before the consumption of wood products
Carbon Stock and Its Annual Change Stored in HWP

Summary

Introduction

Forests function as carbon sinks and stores, with the potential to mitigate climate change. The Harvested Wood Products (HWP) are an extension of forest resources and are part of the forest’s carbon cycle. Fixed carbon transfers from forests to HWPs through deforestation and there is a lag in carbon emissions before the consumption of wood products. The worldwide annual volume of wood removal has increased from approximately 2.75 billion m3 /yr to 3.0 billion m3 /yr from 1990 to 2011 [1]. According to the second assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) [3], the annual global increment of carbon stock in HWPs was around 26 Mt/yr (1 Mt = 106 t). Others estimated larger increments between 40 Mt to 140 Mt per year [4,5]

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Conclusion