Ma Xiaoyu, academician of the German National Academy of Engineering: Only by measuring carbon emissions like electric energy can we more accurately evaluate low-carbon development

"Only by measuring carbon data in the same way as measuring electricity can we know who emits more and who emit less, and can we evaluate low-carbon development more accurately. At the recent China Environmental Technology Conference, Ma Xiaoyu, an academician of the German National Academy of Engineering, said.

Ma Xiaoyu believes that China's independent development of the carbon market, one is to protect the rights and interests of industrial development, the second is to integrate into the international discourse system of the "double carbon" strategy, and the third is to rely on the target traction to fulfill the public commitment of carbon peak and carbon neutrality, because our country's speech must do what it says and do what it says.

To achieve this goal, the corresponding technical means - carbon monitoring and carbon metering are needed.

China's carbon monitoring and carbon measurement development is very fast, from last year's release of the "deepening carbon monitoring and assessment pilot work plan" can be seen that carbon monitoring pilot industries, enterprises and monitoring scope has been further expanded, has expanded from a single power industry to the current eight industries, eight industries accounted for about 75% of China's total carbon dioxide emissions.

At present, the three internationally recognized measurement methods are the material balance algorithm, the emission factor method, and the actual measurement method, but many enterprises do not recognize the material balance algorithm. Ma Xiaoyu, for example, also burns 10,000 tons of coal, and some companies have made technological changes to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, but in the end, carbon measurement is calculated according to the consumption of materials, which means that the more enterprises invest in environmental protection, the less the income will be. He believes that carbon emission accounting is not only the basic guarantee for the effective operation of the carbon market, but also the support of national and provincial carbon emission accounting, but the national enterprise carbon emission accounting work has not been effectively carried out so far, resulting in the corresponding technical progress is not fast, to a certain extent, breeding forgery, tampering, concealment of data and other artificial operations.

Fraud mainly comes from three aspects, one is local governments, because carbon accounting is an increment for local governments, and the government's own accounting capacity is insufficient, but there are carbon emission reduction assessment indicators in its carbon neutrality path and planning, and they have an incentive to falsify in order to complete the assessment indicators on paper. And for companies, reducing carbon emissions means reducing the allowance gap and reducing the spending on carbon trading, and they will certainly be willing to do so. For third-party verification agencies, the need not to verify the truth saves costs and meets the demands of enterprises.

"If there is no accurate technical means for carbon emission and carbon accounting, the problem of fraud will exist for a long time, and it is necessary to make rapid breakthroughs and promote the application of the underlying technology in the future. Ma Xiaoyu pointed out.

At present, there are still some problems with domestic carbon accounting. First, China now has a lot of carbon emission accounting methods, all localities, provinces, and industries, but they are not used in the annual total accounting, and it is difficult to use data to convince the IPCC, and the IPCC overestimates our carbon emissions, causing China to lose its leading position in the negotiations. Second, more than 20 provinces across the country have issued guidance documents related to carbon accounting, and have also held many training courses, but when the documents are issued, a wave of statistics and accounting are organized, without considering the possible operability, and the accounting results of the whole country cannot be verified. Third, there is a difference of 10%-20% in the reported data of carbon accounting in China, which is beyond the international error range of 5%, and it is difficult for the data to be internationally recognized.

If it is to be integrated into the international market and carry out carbon border tax trading, it must be accurately measured to support the construction of the market system. "In the future, carbon data will be measured in the same way as electricity. Ma Xiaoyu believes that in this way, we can know who ranks more and who ranks less, so as to evaluate the low-carbon development situation more accurately. Only by establishing a system of carbon monitoring, carbon measurement and carbon accounting can the carbon market be activated.