China's Investable Forestation Carbon Sink Estimates Under a New Market Incentive Scenario

Abstract

Forestation has a large potential to absorb atmospheric CO2. However, the distribution of investable forestation carbon sink potential in China is still unclear. A new incentive framework was devised to integrate economic and ecological values within the forestation decision-making model, enabling the estimation of both the investable forestation area and carbon sink potential in China. The results showed that the ecologically available forestation area in China is approximately 66.58 Mhm2, and China could biophysically sequester 209.77 Mt CO2 annually through forestation. But due to lower carbon prices, investable forestation area is only 15.77 Mhm2 incentivized by the new market for ecosystem services, representing 23.68% of the ecologically available area. The rate of carbon sequestration is 75.69 Mt CO2 per year, accounting for 36.08% of China’s biophysical potential, and the carbon neutral contribution of investable forestation ranges from 5.39% to 8.37%. Furthermore, China’s forestation carbon sink potential intensity of reforestation was 1.54 times as great as that of afforestation. These findings can provide valuable recommendations for policymakers.

Keywords: Forestation, Carbon sinks, Ecosystem Services, Carbon neutrality