Employees at this HSBC branch in Shanghai and other locations are participating in the HSBC Climate Partnership program. [Asianewsphoto]
They are financial wizards who usually spend their days in big city offices communicating with clients, but some are now communicating with nature this year in a remote mountain area in southern China.
To be specific, they are measuring the diameters of tree trunks.
They are HSBC employees, who are participating in the HSBC Climate Partnership program. The program labels participants "climate champions".
So far, about 1,000 HSBC China staff members have attended the climate change training program. Fifteen HSBC climate champions are working at Gutian Mountain to do field research with scientists.
Gutian Mountain Nature Reserve is located at Zhejiang at the boundary of Jiangxi and Anhui provinces. The plot is a typical subtropical evergreen broadleaf forest in China.
The mountain's rich biodiversity, with 37 percent of the country's rare species, makes it an ideal place for a forest biodiversity-monitoring network of the Institute of Botany of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (IBCAS).
As part of the HSBC Climate Partnership program, HSBC and the Earthwatch Institute established the China Regional Climate Center (China RCC) in East China's Zhejiang province in collaboration with IBCAS.
The China Regional Climate Center marks the commencement of large-scale and in-depth research on the country's forests in the context of climate change. HSBC's "climate champions" are assisting the project's scientists with their work.
Citizen scientists
This is the first time in China that Earthwatch has introduced its "citizen scientists" model, which was created to improve the professionalism of the country's rapidly growing environmental volunteer sector.
"Through our work with HSBC and the Institute of Botany at this Regional Climate Center, we will bring people and science together to take vital steps forward in understanding how we should better manage the forests that sustain livelihoods and support biodiversity in the region," Earthwatch Institute President and CEO Ed Wilson said.
Helen Wong, deputy CEO of HSBC China, said more than 30 HSBC China employees will travel to Gutian Mountain in the next three years to assist scientists.
China has one of the larger areas of subtropical forestlands in the world, but research on how such forests respond to climate change has barely begun, IBCAS Director General Ma Keping said.
Forests help to balance the global production and storage of carbon dioxide, thereby playing a vital role in regulating climate change.
Fundamental to life
Understanding how climate change affects forests is fundamental to all life on the planet, Ma said.
"The establishment of the China Regional Climate Center marks the beginning of research on forests and climate change in China, which will provide a more complete understanding of the interaction between humans and forests and allow us to maximize the biological benefits of China's reforestation efforts and expanded forest coverage," he said.
The research on forests and climate change relies heavily on data collection, which poses a difficult task for scientists.
The Earthwatch Institute's citizenship scientist model, which the HSBC climate champions follow, helps individuals upgrade their environmental protection and monitoring skills.
At the China RCC, HSBC climate champions will receive two weeks of training on climate change while assisting the scientists to collect and analyze data from various tree species.
Kathy Tan is an employee at HSBC China's trade department who became an HSBC climate champion this year.
"Under the guidance of scientists, I've learned how to professionally measure the carbon content of a tree and assisted them in research on forests, which makes me very proud of our achievements," Tan said.
"The two-week program has helped me gain an in-depth and comprehensive understanding of climate change," she said. "I will leverage the knowledge I've learned at the climate center to plan and implement a program related to climate issues in the next three months."
Forest coverage protection is a key measure for China to mitigate climate change. At the United Nations climate summit in New York in September, President Hu Jintao unveiled a blueprint for forest protection efforts through the year 2020.
By then, forest coverage will increase by 40 million hectares, and the volume of forest stock will increase by 1.3 billion cu m from 2005 levels.
China will endeavor to develop a green, low-carbon economy, and enhance research, development and dissemination of climate-friendly technologies, according to the blueprint.
