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Put more carbon in soils to meet Paris climate pledges

Take these eight steps to make soils more resilient to drought, produce more food and store emissions, urge Cornelia Rumpel and colleagues.
  1. Cornelia Rumpel

    1. Cornelia Rumpel is chair of the 4p1000 initiative’s scientific and technical committee and director of research at the CNRS Institute of Ecology and Environmental Sciences, Thiverval-Grignon, France.

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  2. Farshad Amiraslani

    1. Farshad Amiraslani is deputy dean of academic affairs, Faculty of Geography, University of Tehran, Iran.

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  3. Lydie-Stella Koutika

    1. Lydie-Stella Koutika is a senior researcher and deputy director of the Research Center on Productivity and Sustainability of Industrial Plantations (CRDPI), Pointe-Noire, Republic of the Congo.

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  4. Pete Smith

    1. Pete Smith is professor of soils and global change, University of Aberdeen, UK.

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  5. David Whitehead

    1. David Whitehead is a plant and soil scientist at Manaaki Whenua — Landcare Research, Lincoln, New Zealand.

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  6. Eva Wollenberg

    1. Eva Wollenberg is a research professor and flagship leader in the CGIAR Research Program CCAFS, University of Vermont, Burlington, USA.

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People driving through smoke rising from peatland fires

Air pollution in Sumatra in 2013, where peatlands were burned to clear land for a palm-oil plantation. Credit: Ulet Infansasti/Greenpeace

Soils are crucial to managing climate change. They contain two to three times more carbon than the atmosphere. Plants circulate carbon dioxide from the air to soils, and consume about one-third of the CO2 that humans produce. Of that, about 10–15% ends up in the earth.

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Nature 564, 32-34 (2018)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-018-07587-4

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Supplementary Information

  1. Supplementary list of co-signatories

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