Our country has launched the world's first comprehensive carbon emission accounting system.
Our country has launched the world's first comprehensive carbon emission accounting system.
Make a more scientific calculation of carbon emissions
On April 8th, the 1.0 version of "Panshi·YuHeng Carbon Accounting Comprehensive Model" was released in Shanghai. For the first time, it incorporated the production end, the consumption end, and the natural sources into a unified panoramic framework, achieving systematic accounting with multiple metrics and the ability to collaborate, providing substantial support for China's participation in global climate governance and its promotion of green and low-carbon transformation.
Carbon emissions are closely linked to everyone's lives and are also crucial for global climate change and its governance. For a long time, the accounting of carbon emissions has mainly adopted the "production end" method proposed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) of the United Nations - whoever produces it, it is attributed to them. "Most of the global carbon emission accounting systems focus on the production end and neglect the consumption end," said Wei Wei, the vice president of the Shanghai Institute of Advanced Research of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. There have been persistent problems in the field of carbon accounting, such as inconsistent data standards, long accounting cycles, lagging updates, and opaque accounting processes. How to more scientifically and fairly account for this expense has always been a common challenge faced by the international community.
On April 8th, the "Panshi·YuHeng Carbon Accounting Big Model" version 1.0, led by the Shanghai Institute of Advanced Research of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, was released in Shanghai. This is the world's first panoramic carbon emission accounting system covering the production end, consumption end and natural sources. It marks a new breakthrough for China in the field of global carbon emission accounting, providing a "Chinese solution" to address the pain points in the global carbon accounting domain.
Not only should we figure out "who is emitting", but also clarify "for whom it is being emitted"
Greenhouse gas emissions cause global climate change. Accurate accounting of carbon emissions is not only an important basis for international climate compliance, but also a crucial foundation for international carbon pricing, and it directly affects the development space and international competitiveness of various countries.
The traditional carbon accounting system has its shortcomings. For instance, in 2024, the wind turbines and photovoltaic products exported by China generated approximately 2 million tons of carbon emissions during the production stage, but contributed approximately 350 million tons of carbon emission reduction benefits to the world during their operation stage. "Without a comprehensive accounting from the production end to the consumption end, this significant contribution has been overlooked," said Lai Xiaoming, the chairman of Shanghai Environmental Energy Exchange.
"The international community urgently needs a more scientific and fair accounting system. It should not only determine 'who is emitting', but also clarify 'for whom the emissions are being made'." Wei Wei said. "The 'Panshi·Yuheng Carbon Accounting Comprehensive Model' was developed based on this practical need. We are not denying the existing international framework; instead, we are respecting the scientific consensus of the IPCC and promoting the development of carbon emission accounting towards a more comprehensive, dynamic and intelligent direction."
The model is named "Yu Heng", with profound meaning: "Yu" is derived from the legend of Yu the Great who controlled the floods and divided the nine regions, highlighting the wisdom of the Chinese solution in taking a holistic and systematic approach to governance; "Heng" comes from the brightest star "Yuheng" in the Big Dipper constellation, symbolizing that this model aims to become a temporal and spatial benchmark in the field of carbon emission accounting, providing a fair standard for global climate governance.
For the first time, the production end, consumption end and natural sources have been incorporated into a unified panoramic framework.
It's not easy to settle this account.
Wei Wei introduced that the carbon emission accounting field faces four major challenges: complex industry categories and high professional barriers; diverse data sources with different types and varying update frequencies; long traditional accounting cycles and high labor costs; insufficient accuracy, temporal resolution and multi-measure coordination capabilities. The "Panshi·Yuheng Carbon Accounting Big Model" is driven by artificial intelligence technology and has constructed a three-layer support system of data, algorithms and computing power, systematically solving these problems.
At the data level, the research team independently constructed 8 types of core datasets covering key dimensions such as the production end, consumption end, natural sources, and carbon traceability. They also established a collaborative connection mechanism with national departments, industry institutions, and enterprises to achieve frequent data updates and deep integration. Currently, the system has cumulatively aggregated 208TB of multi-format carbon data, forming a high-quality and multi-dimensional "carbon knowledge base".
At the algorithm level, the model is based on the "Pine Rock - Scientific Foundation Large Model" independently developed by the Chinese Academy of Sciences. It has developed a vertical domain large language model with 32 billion parameters and a dialogue interface and programming interface for intelligent databases. On this basis, it has created five specialized intelligent agents with different functions, which can respectively achieve digital simulation and optimization of industrial system processes, trade carbon transfer accounting, life cycle assessment, natural source accounting, and uncertainty analysis. Among them, the life cycle assessment intelligent agent can autonomously complete the entire process of target and scope determination, list analysis, accounting, and result interpretation, and automatically complete the carbon footprint accounting of products.
At the computing power level, by establishing a high-performance internal server cluster and collaborating with external computing power centers, global optimization and elastic supply of computing resources have been achieved. Complex calculations that used to take weeks or even months to complete can now be finished in just a few minutes.
"This is not merely an upgrade of technical tools; it also provides crucial scientific evidence for the global cause of energy conservation and emission reduction," said Wei Wei. The model has for the first time incorporated the production end, the consumption end, and natural sources into a unified panoramic framework, enabling multi-measure and collaborative systematic accounting.
Provide support for China's participation in global climate governance and its promotion of green and low-carbon transformation
The application value of the "Pine Rock Yu Heng Carbon Accounting Comprehensive Model" has been clearly demonstrated in multiple key scenarios, providing substantial support for China's participation in global climate governance and its promotion of green and low-carbon transformation.
Based on the new model's calculation, taking 2022 as an example, from a comprehensive perspective covering both the consumption end and trade transfer, the greenhouse gas emissions of China, the United States, and Japan have been adjusted by -17.7%, +15.2%, and +7.2% respectively compared to the traditional production end accounting results of the IPCC. This change objectively reflects the distribution of carbon emission responsibilities under the global industrial chain division, providing a scientific basis for establishing a more fair and reasonable international responsibility-sharing mechanism.
Xu Huaqing, the chief scientist of the National Center for Climate Change Strategy and International Cooperation, said: "We hope the team will strengthen the research and development of high-precision accounting and measurement equipment, utilize modern information technologies such as blockchain to ensure data security, and at the same time actively benchmark against international relevant rules and standards to build data interfaces with international compatibility, enhance the data conversion capabilities under different rule frameworks, and support China in sending a stronger voice in participating and leading global climate governance."
For industries, this is a more accurate means of quantifying product carbon emissions and a more precise tool for promoting green transformation. In the view of Zhang Xian, the director of the Climate Change Department of the 21st Century Agenda Management Center of China, the industrial intelligent agents in large models can play the role of "digital twin factories", simulating carbon emission scenarios under different production processes and energy structures, and helping enterprises identify key links for carbon reduction and plan transformation paths.
Wei Wei has been engaged in research on carbon capture, utilization and storage, new catalytic materials, and carbon strategies for a long time. In 2024, he led his team to release the first research report that systematically studied and calculated carbon emissions at the consumption end. Wei Wei stated that the research team will continuously iterate and optimize the model, forming algorithms, data and reports with independent intellectual property rights, to provide support for major demands such as the compilation of China's national greenhouse gas inventory, the construction of the national carbon market, the green transformation of key industries, and the response to international carbon policies.
The "global ledger" of carbon emissions, we are expecting a more precise and fair "scientific scale". On this scale, the right to development and the responsibility to protect the Earth will be measured with unprecedented clarity.
