It is estimated that Sichuan will initially establish a supporting system for the high-quality development of forest and grass carbon sink and a trading system for regional forest and grass carbon sink by 2022; The total scale of the forest and grass carbon sink projects will reach 30 million mu by 2025, which is close to the size of Mianyang city. The reporter learned from the Sichuan International Symposium on Forestry Carbon Sink in Chengdu on October 18.

　　Statistics show that Sichuan owns more than 8 million hectares of land available for forest carbon sink. If all of the land is used for carbon sink, 1.05 billion tons of carbon dioxide emissions can be reduced in 30 years. Moreover, Sichuan owns a large number of grassland and wetland resources available.

　　In order to achieve the goal above, Sichuan will plan and build five forest and grass carbon sink development areas in the future, namely, southwest Sichuan area, northwest Sichuan area, northeast Sichuan area, south Sichuan area and central Sichuan area, and will launch carbon sink projects respectively on afforestation, wetland and grassland, bamboo forests, forest management and urban forests.

　　In terms of supporting measures, Sichuan will establish a provincial forest and grass carbon sink expert steering committee and a provincial forest and grass carbon sink research institute to provide technical support for carbon sinks. At the same time, Sichuan will also pilot to explore a trading mechanism for regional forest and grass carbon sink, and encourage high energy consuming and high emission enterprises to purchase forest and grass carbon sinks to fulfill their emission reduction obligations.

　　Sichuan launched the first forest carbon sink project in 2004 and has so far launched 17 projects with a total afforestation area of 126,600 mu. Another 7 projects are under development, involving an afforestation area of nearly 6.5 million mu.