Sommer and Bossio (2014) model the potential soil organic carbon (SOC) sequestration in agricultural soils (croplands and grasslands) during the next 87 years, concluding that this process cannot be considered as a climate stabilization wedge. We argue, however, that the amounts of SOC potentially sequestered in both scenarios (pessimistic and optimistic) fulfil the requirements for being consi...

Underground injection of carbon dioxide for enhanced oil recovery (EOR) is a common practice in the oil and gas industry and has often been cited as a proven method of sequestering CO2 (US DOE, 1999). Of all sequestration methods, this is probably the best understood, as carbon dioxide has been used in the oil industry for many years. Additionally, most oil fields have been relatively well char...

This paper makes two contributions to the carbon-sequestration policy literature. First and foremost, we develop a theoretical framework in which sequestration and permittrading markets are analyzed jointly in the context of a competitive fringe model. Our framework formalizes the linkage between regulatory policy changes (as they manifest themselves in the permit market) and subsequent equilib...

Drylands occupy 6.15 billion hectares (Bha) or 47.2% of the world's land area. Of this, 3.5 to 4.0 Bha (57%-65%) are either desertified or prone to desertification. Despite the low soil organic carbon (SOC) concentration, total SOC pool of soils of the drylands is 241 Pg (1 Pg = petagram = 10(15)g = 1 billion metric ton) or 15.5% of the world's total of 1550 Pg to 1-meter depth. Desertification...

The build-up of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases in the Earth’s atmosphere has caused concern about possible global climate change. As a result, international negotiations have produced the Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC), completed during the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. The treaty, which the United States has ratified, calls for the “stabilization of green...

To mitigate global climate change, a portfolio of strategies will be needed to keep the atmospheric CO2 concentration below a dangerous level. Here a carbon sequestration strategy is proposed in which certain dead or live trees are harvested via collection or selective cutting, then buried in trenches or stowed away in above-ground shelters. The largely anaerobic condition under a sufficiently ...

Land use changes to sequester carbon also provide “co-benefits,” some of which (for example, water quality) have attracted at least as much attention as carbon storage. The non-separability of these co-benefits presents a challenge for policy design. If carbon markets are employed, then social efficiency will depend on how we take into account co-benefits, that is, externalities, in such market...

After death, most of the biological carbon in organisms (Corg) is returned to the atmosphere as CO2 through the respiration of decomposers and detritivores or by combustion. However, the balance between these processes is not perfect, and when productivity exceeds decomposition, carbon sequestration results. An unparalleled interval of carbon sequestration in Earth's history occurred during the...

Total carbon stock in vegetation and soils was reduced 37% in south-central Senegal from 1900 to 2000. The decreasing trend will continue during the 21st century unless forest clearing is stopped, selective logging dramatically reduced, and climate change, if any, relatively small. Developing a sustainable fuelwood and charcoal production system could be the most feasible and significant carbon...