Removing carbon from the atmosphere is as much a social problem as a technical one.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is seeing nothing but blue skies ahead when it comes to his policies on climate change. But will the newly re-elected Liberal government follow through?
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick
While the outcome of the 2021 federal election offered little in the way of change, it may have left Canada better positioned to make progress on reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Soybeans sprout on an Illinois farm through corn stubble left on an unplowed field from the previous season – an example of no-till farming.
Paige Buck, USDA/Flickr
Policymakers want to pay farmers for storing carbon in soil, but there are no uniform rules yet for measuring, reporting or verifying the results. Four scholars offer some ground rules.
If problems in such schemes are not addressed, the credibility of soil carbon trading will be undermined. Ultimately the climate - and the planet - will be the loser.
Rather than considering the job done, Tasmania should seize opportunities including renewable energy, net-zero industrial exports and forest preservation.
Peat beds around the world hold huge quantities of carbon and keep it from warming the planet. But rising temperatures and over-use could turn them from a brake on climate change into an accelerant.
As the world’s largest rainforest, the Amazon is not only an important carbon sink, but also home to thousands of species of plants and animals and a crucial part of the water cycle.
Microscopic ocean phytoplankton feed a “biological pump” that carries carbon from the surface to deep waters. Scientists have found that this process stores much more carbon than previously thought.
Plants take carbon from the atmosphere as they grow, but it goes straight back when they die or are harvested. There is an important difference between carbon fluxes and actual carbon sequestration.
Planting cover crops, like this red clover in Sussex County, Delaware, can help return carbon to farm fields.
Michele Dorsey Walfred/Flickr
Storing more carbon in soil helps slow climate change and makes croplands more productive. But there are two kinds of soil carbon that are both important, but function very differently.
Dries Roobroeck, International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA)
Unused biomass residues from maize, sorghum, rice, millet and groundnut in Uganda show to offer unique opportunities for circular production and soil amendment of biochar.
While hemp does not sequester as much carbon dioxide as trees, it can be used as an efficient energy crop or in concrete, both with a potentially positive carbon sequestration effect.
from www.shutterstock.com
A new report calls land key to solving climate change. The good news is that there are strategies for reducing carbon emissions from land use that can also produce economic and social benefits.