Speech by Jia Zhibang, Administrator of the State Forestry Administration July 17, 2007 |
Ladies and Gentlemen, Good morning! It's a great pleasure to meet you all here. In early June this year, the Chinese government issued ? China 's National Climate Change Program?. On July 9th and 11th respectively, Premier Wen Jiabao presided the first session of the National Leading Group to Address Climate Change, Energy Saving and Emission Reduction, and the executive meeting of the State Council to discuss and arrange issues related to energy saving and emission reduction as well as addressing climate change. This has fully demonstrated the Chinese government is attaching great importance to the climate change, energy saving and emission reduction issues. We have printed and handed out to you a written document on the role of forestry in mitigating climate change and the measures we have taken. Now I would like to brief you three major points. First, forestry plays a very important role in mitigating climate change. As the main body of the terrestrial eco-system, forest is the largest carbon storage and the most economic carbon absorber. With photosynthesis, plants can absorb carbon dioxide, emit oxygen, transform the carbon dioxide in the air into carbohydrate and have it stored in the form of biomass and this process is called ?carbon sequestration?. Scientific researches have shown that every one cubic meter of forest stock volume can absorb, on average, 1.83 tons of carbon dioxide and emit 1.62 tons of oxygen. According to the estimation of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, among 2.48 trillion tons of carbon in the terrestrial eco-system on the earth, 1.15 trillion tons is stored in forest eco-system. Meanwhile, the protection of wetlands will also impact the density of carbon dioxide in the air. Therefore, both forest and wetlands play an important and a unique role in absorbing carbon dioxide and mitigating the global climate change. Second, China 's forest resources have made a great contribution to fighting global warming. It has been a long time since the Chinese government carried out such measures as compulsory tree planting campaign, afforestation, mountain closure for natural regeneration, and the tending of young and middle-aged stands. A series of key forestry programs have also been implemented. In the past 26 years since the national compulsory tree planting campaign was launched, more than 49.2 billion trees have been planted accumulatively with 10.4 billion person times of people participating in the campaign. The preserved area of plantation in China has reached 54 million ha (about 800 million mu), ranking first in the world. At the same time, China has also made great progress in the protection of forest resources and the development of nature reserves. There are by far 2,349 nature reserves of different types in China , covering 15.2 percent of the total national land area. Plantation and forestry protection have remarkably helped increase of the forest area and forest stock volume in China . The total forestry area has reached 175 million ha, with the forest cover up to 18.21 percent, and the standing stock volume in China totals 13.618 billion cubic meters, with 500 million cubic meters of annual growth on average. With the increase of China 's forest resources, the annual absorption of carbon dioxide has also increased annually. It was estimated by domestic experts that the equivalent carbon dioxide absorbed by China 's forest in 2004 totaled about 500 million tons, equaling 8 percent of the total greenhouse gas emission nationwide of the same period. Third, the Chinese government is strengthening its effort in improving the capacity of forestry in combating climate change. China is a developing country, and China is also a responsible big country. The Chinese government determines to make greater contribution to combating global climate change by direct emission reduction (i.e. reducing the industrial emission) and indirect emission reduction (i.e. absorbing carbon dioxide by forest). We will focus our efforts on the following three measures in order to bring forest into full play in indirect emission reduction. First, we will speed up our efforts in afforestation. It is expected that in the next 30 to 50 years, China 's annual forest growth will double to one billion cubic meters, and the carbon sequestration of forest eco-system will also be doubled. Second, we will strengthen our efforts in the protection and management of forest, wetlands and forest land. By 2010, the nature reserves in China will take up 16 percent of the total land area of China, 90 percent of typical forest eco-systems and wild animals and plants of national priority will be protected, 22 million ha of desertified land will be taken under effective control, and about 18 million ha, 50 percent of the total, of natural wetlands will also be protected effectively. Third, we will expand our efforts in developing forestry biomass energy. We will establish China Green Carbon Fund and actively encourage enterprises to participate in forestry biomass energy development and afforestation and forest management for carbon sequestration. During the 11 th Five-Year Plan period, 12.50 million mu of bio-diesel energy forest demonstration base will be established, and by 2020, 200 million mu of high-yield and high-quality energy forest demonstration base will be established in order to meet the demands for raw material for the production of over six million tons of bio-diesel oil and an annual electricity generation capacity of over 15 million kilowatts. Models of ?Forest-oil Integration? and ?Forest-electricity Integration? will be gradually promoted in order to facilitate the development of forestry biomass-energy. Now the floor is open for questions.
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