Soil Carbon Sequestration for Climate Change Mitigation: What We Can Expect

Dr. William Schlesinger, member of the NAS and former director of the Cary Institute and former Dean of Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment. Improved soil management is increasingly pursued to ensure food security for the world’s rising global population, with the ancillary benefit of storing carbon in soils to lower the threat of climate change. While all increments to soil organic matter are laudable, we suggest caution in ascribing large, potential climate change mitigation to enhanced soil management. We find that the most promising techniques, including applications of biochar and enhanced silicate weathering, are not likely to balance more than 5% of annual emissions of CO2 from fossil fuel combustion. 2018 William H. Pierre Memorial Lecture in Soil Science