Carbon sequestration from China’s afforestation projects

Since the late 1970s, the Chinese government has implemented massive afforestation projects to address grievous environmental disasters, protect human health and provide long-term environmental security. Having a better understanding of the total carbon sink from the afforestation projects is fundamental to assess its global carbon benefit. Here, the sequestered carbon stock based on Chinese national forest inventory data is calculated by using three comparable volume-derived biomass models. Results show that the carbon sink contribution from these Chinese afforestation projects was 1.02 Pg C by the end of 2008 and 0.79 Pg C on average from 1981 to 2008 with a cumulative rate of 0.028 Pg C/a, which corresponds to 2 % of the total industrial carbon emissions from China during the same period. The financial value of carbon sequestration from these projects can be estimated by its value in carbon taxes of Finland and is potentially 190 billion RMB from 1981 to 2008, which is 43.4 % of the original investment. Hence although China’s afforestation projects make only modest contributions to offsetting industrial growth in carbon, the carbon sequestered, if valued according to some markets, is a significant fraction of the total project costs.