ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Environ. Sci.
Sec. Environmental Economics and Management
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fenvs.2025.1647605
Towards a Carbon Compensation Framework: Integrating Embodied Carbon Transfer and Carbon Sequestration Service Flows in Urban Agglomerations
Provisionally accepted
- 1Hebei University of Economics and Business, Shijiazhuang, China
- 2Hebei Collaborative Innovation Center for Urban-rural Integrated Development, Hebei University of Economics and Business,, Shijiazhuang, China
- 3Institute of Environmental Economics, Chinese Academy of Natural Resource Economics, beijing, China
- 4North China Engineering Investigation Institute Co., LTD., Shijiazhuang, China
- 5School of Geographical Sciences, Hebei Normal University, Shijiazhuang, China
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Introduction: Urban agglomerations, as regions of concentrated economic activity, exhibit both embodied carbon transfer (ECT) driven by interregional trade and carbon sequestration service flows (CSSF) caused by spatial mismatches in carbon sink supply and demand. Research Gap: Traditional carbon compensation mechanisms often adopt a single perspective, limiting their ability to reflect interregional carbon responsibility. Methods: Using the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei (BTH) urban agglomeration as a case study, this paper proposes a “Flow-Zoning-Compensation” framework that integrates ECT and CSSF. It identifies inter-administrative carbon flow paths, clarifies compensation subjects and benchmarks, and generates differentiated compensation schemes to establish a fairer horizontal carbon compensation mechanism. Results: (1) Economically developed cities (e.g., Beijing, Shijiazhuang) transfer embodied carbon to industrial cities (e.g., Tianjin, Tangshan, Handan), while ecological function zones (e.g., Zhangjiakou, Chengde) not only receive embodied carbon but also provide sequestration services; (2) Based on total net transfers, the 13 cities in BTH are divided into six payers and seven recipients, with Shijiazhuang (2.861 billion CNY) and Chengde (2.860 billion CNY) as the main payer and recipient, respectively. Discussion: This mechanism offers a more comprehensive reflection of carbon responsibility and provides policy implications for coordinated low-carbon development and national-level compensation design.
Keywords: Embodied carbon transfer, Carbon sequestration service flow, Flow-Zoning-Compensation, Carbon compensation, Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei urban agglomeration
Received: 16 Jun 2025; Accepted: 28 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Chen, Liu, Yang and Wang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: min Xiang Liu, Institute of Environmental Economics, Chinese Academy of Natural Resource Economics, beijing, China
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