Carbon farming: Are soil carbon certificates a suitable tool for climate change mitigation?

Increasing soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks in agricultural soils removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and contributes towards achieving carbon neutrality. For farmers, higher SOC levels have multiple benefits, including increased soil fertility and resilience against drought-related yield losses. However, increasing SOC levels requires agricultural management changes that are associated with costs. Private soil carbon certificates could compensate for these costs. In these schemes, farmers register their fields with commercial certificate providers who certify SOC increases. Certificates are then sold as voluntary emission offsets on the carbon market. In this paper, we assess the suitability of these…

• BF
  Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung

  Awards: 031B0511A, 031B0511B, 031B0511C
• B
  BonaRes

  Awards: 031B0511C, 031B0511B, 031B0511A