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Biosphere Sub-sector & Opportunities

Pivoting to Climate Session VI

Jonathan Pearson

Lisandra West-Odell

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What is the Biosphere sub-sector?

Lisandra West-Odell - lisandrawest@gmail.com

Jonathan Pearson – jonathan@strategy4ward.com

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Biosphere represents threats and opportunities

Lisandra West-Odell - lisandrawest@gmail.com

Jonathan Pearson – jonathan@strategy4ward.com

25% of our carbon emissions historically captured by Earth’s forests, farms, and grasslands

Croplands - 10% of total
Soil - could sequester over a billion additional tons of carbon each year (SOC)

25 - 30% of CO2 from burning fossil fuels is absorbed by the upper layer of the ocean
Total: about 50% of emissions

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How will this sector contribute to Net Zero?

Lisandra West-Odell - lisandrawest@gmail.com

Jonathan Pearson – jonathan@strategy4ward.com

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The Carbon Cycle - carbon moves through the land, atmosphere, and oceans

Source: Project Drawdown Solutions Library

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Leading technologies/approach to achieve this change

Source: Project Drawdown Solutions Library

Land

Ice & Snow

Soil

Forests & Woodlands

Oceans & Waterways

Air Quality

Abandoned farmland restoration
Coastal wetland protection
Grassland protection
Peatland protection and rewetting

Biochar production
Composting
Nutrient Management
Perennial Biomass production

Bamboo production
Forest Protection
Indigenous Peoples Forest Tenure
Multistrata Agroforestry
Temperate Forest Restoration
Tropical Forest Restoration
Tree Plantations (on degraded land)

Seafloor protection
Seaweed farming
Coastal wetland protection
Coastal wetland restoration
Macroalgae protection and restoration

…

Landfill methane capture
Methane leak management
Methane digesters
Direct air capture

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Creating a Market for Natural Ecosystem Carbon sequestration

Only by setting aside half of the planet in reserve, or more, can we save the living part of the environment and achieve the stabilization required for our own survival.

E. O. Wilson

What is necessary to achieve this goal?

Recognition - measure / quantify and understand the capacity of Carbon sequestration by ecosystem
Incentivize - create a market
Reward / compensation

How can Technology assist us?

E.O Wilson vision as the necessity here - 2 questions

What is necessary to achieve this goal

1 - Recognition - in order to recognize, we need to measure / understand capacity of Carbon sequestration by ecosystem and then..

2 & 3 - Incentivization & Reward - price on Carbon sequestration capacity

Market - effectively creating a “market for ecosystem carbon sequestration” - a lot of components to this -

Countries, and peoples responsible for protecting / maintaining ecosystems - compensate them

Business sector - understand possible profits around enabling industry carbon capture

Farming - Measuring soil carbon sequestration is a crucial step for farmers and agribusinesses wanting to reap financial benefits from their efforts

Policy - what this amounts to from a policy perspective is policy makers increasingly looking to soil-based carbon sequestration as a “negative emissions” technology—that is, one that removes CO2 from the air and stores it somewhere it can’t easily escape.

2 - Technology - how can it assist us here - Measuring Carbon Sequestration - soil…

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Measuring Carbon Soil Sequestration (SOC)

How to measure, report and verify soil carbon change to realize the potential of soil carbon sequestration for atmospheric greenhouse gas removal

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SOC represents a stock of ~1500 - 2500 Gt Carbon in the top meter of soils globally

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Monitoring, Reporting and Verification (MRV) platforms

Direct Measurement of SOC

Space-time mapping of soil organic carbon stock and its local drivers: Potential for use in carbon accounting

Needed: MRV platform - supports the monitoring, reporting and Verification of SOC over time

first step - Essential to establish baseline SOC values
Formula for direct measurement stock SOC -
This approach traditionally involves the quantification of (a) fine earth (<2 mm) and coarse mineral (>2 mm) fractions of the soil; (b) organic carbon (OC) concentration (%) of the fine earth fraction; and (c) soil bulk density or fine earth mass

SOC = the organic C (%) proportion in the fine earth fraction (<2mm) (fine earth)
BD = bulk density in g cm-3 (density)
G = proportion of gravel content (coarse mineral)
D = the thickness of the layer in cm

Key Challenge sited:

Direct measurements rely on good study design and sufficient sampling - deeper soil sampling is recommended - sampling is non-trivial! (Newer tech helps!)
to accurately estimate the rock content of sampled soils, which can significantly affect soil bulk density

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Spectral methods for measuring SOC

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Establishing SOC over time

How to measure, report and verify soil carbon change to realize the potential of soil carbon sequestration for atmospheric greenhouse gas removal

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Models of SOC change

How to measure, report and verify soil carbon change to realize the potential of soil carbon sequestration for atmospheric greenhouse gas removal

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AI Models generate predictive analytic solutions

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SOC & MRV SWOT

Strengths

direct SOC measurements over large areas over time
enables accurate soil carbon sequestration

Weaknesses

sampling is non-trivial
hard to accurately measure the carbon content of rock
operationally challenging
organizational support and funding required - esp in dev countries

Threats

land use changes and management over time make attribution of SOC changes difficult
inherent complexity to designing appropriate monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) platforms
huge stock = huge emissions potential

Opportunities

MRV platforms - open access, collaborative global system
consistent measurements globally
promote funding and compensation for ecosystem preservation!

LWO

Strengths / Advantages:

repeat sampling schemes measure actual soil carbon contents over large spatial scales and over long periods
Acquiring samples and/or more in‐field measurements, allows a direct assessment of carbon sequestration of the soil

Opportunities:

mrv platforms - open‐access database - where short‐ or long‐term soil C measurements could be uploaded and shared via collaborative platforms that can be used by different countries / regions for a global MRV system for consistency
supports the notion that we can establish value of ecosystems in terms of their carbon sequestration potential - then compensate people / countries / regions to preserve

Weakness, challenge:

challenges inherent in large scale data collection over time - sampling & study design is non trivial, time consuming
direct soil sampling:The challenge remains to accurately estimate the rock content of sampled soils, which can significantly affect soil bulk density
From an operational point of view, to implement an integrated monitoring system, it will be crucial to overcome initialization costs and unequal access to monitoring technologies
For developing countries, this will require international cooperation, capacity building and technology transfer - needs organizational support and funding

Threats (challenges)

poor documentation of land‐use change and land management between sampling periods are mostly unknown, making attribution of any observed changes in soil carbon to specific drivers (such as management or climate change) very difficult -
inherent complexity to designing appropriate monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) platforms, and implementing them widely (
huge stock 1500 - 2500 - if we fail to protect - huge potential to release C to atmosphere - frozen tundra and permafrost unfreezing

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Biosphere sub-sector SWOT

Strengths

Shared/public oceans
Abundant and proven technologies

Weaknesses

Private land ownership
Food production pressures
Challenging to measure
Few to no solutions for some sub-sectors

Threats

Human encroachment
Meat-based diets
Politics and tribalism

Opportunities

Combined opportunities with food sub-sector
Top-down and bottom-up
Land efficiency

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Appendix

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What are the leading technologies/approach to achieve this change?

Lisandra

Lisandra West-Odell - lisandrawest@gmail.com

Jonathan Pearson – jonathan@strategy4ward.com

NOTES for quantification / potential of carbon sequestration by ecosystem type:

25% of our carbon emissions have historically been captured by Earth’s forests, farms, and grasslands

Croplands - 10% of Earth’s land
Soil - could sequester over a billion additional tons of carbon each year (SOC)

25 - 30% of CO2 we emit from burning fossil fuels is absorbed by the upper layer of the ocean - implications…
Total: about 50% of emissions currently.. but this is stressing the systems

Forests, farms, grasslands - scientists and land managers are working to keep landscapes vegetated and soil hydrated for plants to grow and sequester carbon.

Crops - Cropland, which takes up 10% of the Earth’s land, is a major target for soil-based carbon sequestration.

Farmers can add more carbon to agricultural soils by planting certain kinds of crops. For example, perennial crops, which do not die off every year, grow deep roots that help soils store more carbon.

Soil - Key mediator of carbon sequestration - Carbon is sequestered in soil by plants through photosynthesis and can be stored as soil organic carbon (SOC).

Scientists have estimated that soils—mostly, agricultural ones (agroforestry) —could sequester over a billion additional tons of carbon each year

Ocean - But this raises the water’s acidity, and ocean acidification makes it harder for marine animals to build their shells. Scientists and the fishing industry are taking proactive steps to monitor the changes from carbon sequestration and adapt fishing practices.

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How will this sector contribute to Net Zero?

Lisandra West-Odell - lisandrawest@gmail.com

Jonathan Pearson – jonathan@strategy4ward.com