Brussels, 06/03/2009 (Agence Europe) - As an enormous carbon reservoir, soils can play a crucial role in mitigating climate change, as long as we take the trouble to protect them and thus preserve them as “carbon sinks”, the European Commission states in a report published on Thursday 5 March. Enough to put some wind in the sails of those supporting European legislation on the protection of soils, and of those in favour of underground carbon sequestration and storage, as a complementary technology for greater reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.
Stavros Dimas, European Environment Commissioner, makes no bones about it. “I am delighted with this report which strengthens the message communicated during the conference on soils and climate change organised by the Commission in June 2008, and which gives clear indications about the road to follow. Properly managed soils can absorb enormous quantities of carbon from the atmosphere, buying us valuable time to reduce emissions and move towards sustainability. But Europe's soils urgently need better protection, and the answer must be a coordinated solution”, the commissioner comments.
According to the report, entitled “Review of existing information on the interrelations between soil and climate change”, Europe's soils contain an estimated 73 to 79 billion tonnes of carbon, almost twice as much as the atmosphere and three times more than vegetation. Nearly 50% of this carbon is fixed in peat bogs in Sweden, Finland, the United Kingdom and Ireland. Around 310,000 km2 of pristine peatlands have already been lost to agriculture, forestry, urbanisation or erosion. More than half of the remaining areas are also being drained. Protecting these peatlands is therefore an absolute imperative, the report stresses, as even a tiny loss of 0.1% of carbon emitted into the atmosphere from European soils is the equivalent to the carbon emission of 100 million extra cars on Europe's roads, an increase of about half of the existing car fleet. Conversely, at today's prices, an increase in soil carbon of the same small amount would be worth some €200 million.
The report highlights the need for carbon to be sequestered in soils. Not only is this technique competitive and immediately available, it also has a mitigation potential comparable to that of any other sector of the economy and is in line with the objectives of the EU thematic strategy on soil protection, the Commission points out.
The report also underlines that land-use significantly affects soil carbon stocks. Soils under grassland and forest act as sinks, sequestering up to 100 million tonnes of carbon per year, although soils under arable land act as net emitters, releasing between 10 and 40 million tonnes of carbon per year. When cropland is converted back to the land's original use (grasslands, managed forest land or native ecosystems), this loss is reversed - but it takes time.
As the world's population grows, ever greater areas of grasslands and forests are converted to croplands, and soils that are currently carbon sinks will turn into net emitters. The most effective strategy to prevent global soil carbon loss would be to halt these land conversions - but this may conflict with growing global demand for food, the report states.
The following recommendations are set out in the report: - improvements to agricultural practices are needed to minimise carbon losses at the level of the crop and the crop residues, by ensuring that soils are protected against water and rain with a permanent vegetation cover. Less intrusive ploughing techniques and less machinery could also be used to sequester between 50 and 100 million tonnes of carbon annually in European soils; - there is an urgent need to improve monitoring of soil carbon stock and trends to ensure that soils play a more prominent role in a future climate change mitigation agreement; - the framework directive proposed by the Commission in 2006 (as the cornerstone for the EU's soil protection strategy) must be adopted but has been blocked in Council since December 2007 because of opposition from five member states (United Kingdom, Germany, France, Austria and the Netherlands) which do not want a directive. The report may be consulted online at: http://www.http.//ec.europa.eu/environment/soil/publications_en.htm (A.N./transl.jl)