Managing Soil Organic Carbon for Mitigating Climate Change and Increasing Food Security

The potential of soil organic carbon sequestration for climate change mitigation and food security

SOC sequestration on cropland and grassland is an important mitigation option with potentially significant cobenefits for food security. At a carbon price of 20 $/tCO2eq, Paustian et al. (2016) identified a technical mitigation potential of 3-8 GtCO2eq/yr related to improved cropland and grassland management, biochar application, enhanced root phenotypes, and restoration of degraded lands and o...

Soil carbon sequestration impacts on global climate change and food security.

The carbon sink capacity of the world's agricultural and degraded soils is 50 to 66% of the historic carbon loss of 42 to 78 gigatons of carbon. The rate of soil organic carbon sequestration with adoption of recommended technologies depends on soil texture and structure, rainfall, temperature, farming system, and soil management. Strategies to increase the soil carbon pool include soil restorat...

Climate change and food security.

Dynamic interactions between and within the biogeophysical and human environments lead to the production, processing, distribution, preparation and consumption of food, resulting in food systems that underpin food security. Food systems encompass food availability (production, distribution and exchange), food access (affordability, allocation and preference) and food utilization (nutritional an...

Simultaneously mitigating near-term climate change and improving human health and food security.

Tropospheric ozone and black carbon (BC) contribute to both degraded air quality and global warming. We considered ~400 emission control measures to reduce these pollutants by using current technology and experience. We identified 14 measures targeting methane and BC emissions that reduce projected global mean warming ~0.5°C by 2050. This strategy avoids 0.7 to 4.7 million annual premature deat...

Climate change, biofuels, and global food security