GLOBAL CLIMATE SUMMIT: soil as natural carbon sink
David Yarrow
Dr. Thomas J. Goreau, Global Coral Reef Alliance
at the global climate summit in Lima, Peruwarns participants in climate negotiations,
and advocates using soil as a natural carbon sink
[EXCEPT] Soil has six times more carbon than the atmosphere, and only a 10 per cent increase could absorb the excess carbon in our atmosphere. But soil is not listed as a UNFCCC carbon sink, countries don’t account for soil carbon, and there is no serious funding for farmers to increase it.
Soil carbon storage technologies are mature and successfully applied in every continent except Antarctica. My new book, ‘Geotherapy: Innovative Methods of Soil Fertility Restoration, Carbon Sequestration, and Reversing CO2 Increase’, shows how to remove the dangerous excess as fast as possible.
Photosynthesis, along with carbon storage using ancient Indigenous Amazonian Indian biochar technology, could absorb the excess in a few decades, greatly increasing soil fertility, retaining nutrients, minerals, and water. Increased soil carbon greatly increases food production, forestry, and groundwater recharge, reduces temperature, and produces carbon-negative biomass energy while reducing CO2.
Large scale restoration of ecosystems and soils is the only way we can remove the carbon from where it is doing the most damage, and put it back in the ground where it does the most good – just in time to save coral reefs, islands, and low lying coasts from extinction. But, incredibly, it is not even being discussed at COP20, despite the fact that 2015 is the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) Year of the Soil.
