Potential of land-based climate change mitigation strategies on abandoned cropland

Abstract Natural revegetation, afforestation, and lignocellulosic crops for bioenergy, possibly coupled with a developing technology like carbon capture storage, are the most common land-based climate change mitigation options. However, they can compete land threaten food security or nature conservation. Using abandoned cropland their deployment minimize these risks, but associated potentials unclear. Here, we compare alternative options by integrating historical future (up to 2050) site-specific biomass yields life-cycle emissions. Considering natural revegetation in biodiversity priority areas different measures remaining achieve potential of 0.8–4.0 GtCO 2 -equivalents yr −1 (2–11% 2021 global CO emissions). Afforestation generally provides larger benefits than bioenergy storage delivers highest locations. Overall, results offer refined estimates from highlight opportunities context-specific measures.