Page 32 - Research on Financial Development Mechanism and Path of Forestry Carbon Sequestration in Developing Countries under Double Carbon Targets

Research on Financial Development Mechanism and Path of Forestry Carbon
Sequestration in Developing Countries under Double Carbon Targets

optimize the energy consumption structure; Tamia Liu and others have established the
correlation between product carbon footprint and organization-level carbon accounting,
and pointed out that the application of life cycle assessment method can systematically
and quantitatively carry out low-carbon development planning for iron and steel enter-
prises.
The history of carbon footprint research at home and abroad is also not long, and
the foreign experience has certain limitations to our reference. Therefore, the realization
of the green and low-carbon transformation and the realization of the double-carbon
target in our country has put forward the demand for carrying out the carbon footprint
assessment with the characteristics of China (large volume, many industries, long pro-
cesses, etc.), and at the same time, it also faces many challenges.

2.2.1 Carbon footprint assessment technology

1) Carbon footprint concept
The concept of carbon footprint originated from the ecological footprint, which
refers to the biologically productive land and sea area (in global hectares) needed to
maintain a certain population. According to this concept, the carbon footprint refers
to the land area needed to absorb all CO2 emissions from human activities. With the
passage of time, the use of carbon footprint has gradually become widespread, but few
research reports express the carbon footprint in terms of global hectares, more in terms
of CO2 equivalent (CO2-eq). Even, in order to distinguish it from ecological footprint,
some literatures use words similar to the concept of carbon footprint to describe it,
such as implicit carbon, carbon content, embedded carbon, carbon flux, virtual carbon,
greenhouse gas footprint and climate footprint. Scholars and institutions at home and
abroad have different understandings of the concept of carbon footprint. The main
differences are as follows: First, carbon footprint assessment objects, products and ac-
tivities (individuals, groups, organizations, companies, governments, countries, etc.);
Second, the carbon footprint assessment boundary, whether it needs to be traced back to
the whole life cycle process such as raw material mining and transportation; Third, the
calculation content, whether to calculate only CO2 emissions or calculate CO2 emis-
sion equivalent of all greenhouse gases; Calculate direct emissions only, or calculate
the cumulative total of direct and indirect emissions.
Accurate and scientific carbon footprint assessment is an effective means to achieve
the “double carbon” goal. Clear methods and unified concepts are the premise for the
carbon footprint to play its role as a “booster” in a low-carbon society. In particular,

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