BEIJING, May 12 — China is ramping up the use of space technology to meet its ambitious carbon reduction pledges, marking the latest move with a cargo spacecraft that sent a greenhouse gas monitoring payload to the Chinese space station on Monday.
Among the payload delivered to orbit by the Tianzhou-10 cargo spacecraft is a lightweight, high-resolution greenhouse-gas point-source detection instrument, spearheaded by the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.
Designed for external mounting, the device can measure carbon dioxide and methane concentrations at key emission sources across the globe’s mid-to-low latitudes.
This will provide reliable, accurate, and high-frequency data to support greenhouse gas monitoring, reporting and verification.
“This equipment will provide robust data support for China’s ‘dual carbon’ initiatives and contribute Chinese wisdom to the global response against climate change,” the National Space Science Center under the Chinese Academy of Sciences said in a statement.
China has set the dual carbon goals of peaking carbon dioxide emissions before 2030 and achieving carbon neutrality before 2060. Monday’s orbital payload marks China’s latest move in leveraging space technology for carbon monitoring.
Just last month, the country launched a satellite into orbit for high-precision greenhouse gas detection. Equipped with an atmospheric lidar, the satellite is the world’s first to conduct synergistic active-passive greenhouse gas detection.
In April 2022, China launched an atmospheric environment monitoring satellite equipped with lidar. By July 2024, it achieved high-precision detection of the carbon dioxide column concentration at 1 ppm and operated globally around the clock.
China placed its inaugural global CO2 monitoring satellite, TanSat, into a sun-synchronous orbit in 2016, paving the way for research into the global carbon cycle.
Following this milestone, Chinese research teams have utilized the satellite’s data to foster scientific partnerships, including a notable collaboration with a team from Finland.
China officially launched its national carbon emissions trading market in July 2021, and it has since evolved into the world’s largest carbon market by total greenhouse gas emissions traded — a massive undertaking that demands precise carbon accounting.
While the traditional “bottom-up” carbon accounting system relies on estimates based on activity data and emission factors, which can be prone to discrepancies, satellites allow us to conduct precise “top-down” monitoring, said Zhu Wenshan, an expert at the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC).
“Although meteorological satellites such as Gaofen and Fengyun offer some carbon monitoring functions, their accuracy falls short of systematically meeting our comprehensive needs for tracking greenhouse gas emissions,” Zhu explained. In addition to monitoring carbon emissions, China launched the Goumang satellite in 2022.
As the world’s first remote sensing satellite for forest carbon sinks, combining both active and passive observation methods, it became fully operational in 2024.
Goumang, named after the ancient Chinese god of spring, growth and life, is designed to detect vegetation biomass and productivity, and monitor atmospheric aerosol distribution. China’s private sector is also stepping into the field of space-based carbon monitoring.
Dyscienc, a startup from the eastern city of Ningbo, unveiled a satellite constellation plan in February, aiming to launch a 28-satellite network that includes 7 satellites for carbon source monitoring and 21 for carbon sink monitoring.
According to Dyscienc’s roadmap, the first carbon source satellite is scheduled for launch by the end of 2026, and the near-real-time global carbon monitoring will be achieved before 2030. (Namibia Daily News/Xinhua)
