Summary
This review examines soil carbon sequestration and biochar as negative emissions technologies (NETs) for climate stabilisation, comparing their potential and constraints against alternative NETs including direct air capture, enhanced weathering, bioenergy with carbon capture and storage, and afforestation. The analysis indicates that soil carbon sequestration and biochar each offer useful negative emissions potential of approximately 0.7 GtCeq yr⁻¹ with potentially lower impacts on land, water, nutrients, albedo and cost than many competing NETs, though implementation is constrained by sink saturation and reversibility issues for soil carbon sequestration. The author concludes that integrated assessment models should incorporate soil carbon sequestration and biochar options to allow more comprehensive climate stabilisation scenario exploration.
UK applicability
The findings are relevant to UK climate policy and farming practice, particularly given existing government targets for carbon sequestration and net-zero commitments. However, UK-specific constraints around available land area, water availability and the reversibility of soil carbon gains would require further contextualisation before application to national emission reduction scenarios.
Key measures
Negative emissions potential (GtCeq yr⁻¹); comparative assessment of land use, water use, nutrient impacts, albedo effects, energy requirements and cost across multiple negative emissions technologies
Outcomes reported
The study assessed the negative emissions potential of soil carbon sequestration and biochar addition, estimating each at 0.7 GtCeq yr⁻¹, and evaluated their global impacts on land use, water, nutrients, albedo, energy requirements and implementation cost.
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