China has launched what it calls the world’s first “panoramic” carbon accounting system, a model that revises down the country’s emissions compared to other estimates and raises them for the United States.

Unlike other models that assign responsibility for emissions based on total carbon output from facilities such as power plants and factories, the new model gives greater weight to the consumers of products.

Developed by the Shanghai Advanced Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), the model calculated China’s 2022 greenhouse gas emissions as 17.7 per cent lower than the figure generated by a widely used United Nations equivalent. Meanwhile, it raised the total for the United States by 15.2 per cent.

“Panoramic carbon accounting is set to become a core driver for advancing global climate governance towards greater precision and consensus,” CAS said on April 8.

The ScienceOne-Yuheng Carbon Accounting Large Model would contribute to the establishment of “a more equitable and scientifically grounded global carbon accounting and responsibility-sharing framework”, CAS added.

Wei Wei, vice-president of the institute and the lead scientist of the model’s research team, was quoted as saying that the model “represents a paradigm shift in how we understand and manage global carbon emissions”.