California leads the nation in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but reductions alone will not be enough to reach the targets set by the 2015 Paris climate agreement. To do that, greenhouses gases like carbon dioxide will need to be removed from the atmosphere on a monumental scale.
An ambitious new multicampus, multipartner consortium led by the University of California, Davis, and the 新澳门六合彩内幕信息 Working Lands Innovation Center is taking on that challenge with the goal of finding ways to capture billions of tons of carbon dioxide and bring net carbon emissions in California to zero by 2045.
The consortium has received a three-year, from the state of California鈥檚 Strategic Growth Council to research scalable methods of using soil amendments 鈥 rock, compost and biochar 鈥 to sequester greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide in soil.
鈥淲e鈥檙e pleased to be leading this effort and tapping into the deep expertise in our state to tackle one of the world鈥檚 most pressing challenges,鈥 said 新澳门六合彩内幕信息 Davis Chancellor Gary S. May. 鈥淏y leveraging California鈥檚 collective ingenuity in academia, agriculture and government, we can mitigate the most harmful effects of climate change globally.鈥
Amending soil to capture carbon
新澳门六合彩内幕信息 Davis , director of the and a member of the 新澳门六合彩内幕信息 Office of the President鈥檚 Global Climate Leadership Council, is the principal investigator for the project. 新澳门六合彩内幕信息 Berkeley Professor Whendee Silver, lead scientist of the , is the co-principal investigator.
鈥淲e need to remove carbon dioxide pollution from the air in a way the world has never seen before,鈥 said Houlton. 鈥淎mending the soil with natural materials can help to restore soil health, and boost crop yields while capturing carbon dioxide and locking it away so that it doesn鈥檛 cause climate impacts that harm people, ecosystems and the economy.鈥
The Working Lands Innovation Center will partner with industry, community groups, farmers, ranchers, tribes and small businesses to support the state鈥檚 agriculture and natural resources, and the livelihoods of Californians.
Finding 鈥榮hovel-ready鈥 solutions
To find out whether adding pulverized rock, compost and biochar to different types of crops and rangelands can significantly , the consortium will conduct and oversee 29 treatment and control sites across California. The studies will assess whether soil amendments can bring additional co-benefits, such as improved crop and rangeland productivity and soil health to California growers and ranchers across diverse regions.
The sites range from croplands in the Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys to the Imperial Valley, as well as ranchlands from Marin County to Southern California.
鈥淧revious research points to some promising avenues for carbon capture and storage through the use of soil amendments,鈥 said Silver. 鈥淔or example, we found that adding organic waste 鈥 food waste, green waste, livestock manure 鈥 as composted soil amendments could save the equivalent of 28 million tons of carbon dioxide using just 5 percent of California鈥檚 rangelands. That鈥檚 equal to approximately 80 percent of the emissions from the state鈥檚 agriculture and forestry sector.鈥
At the end of the three years, the consortium plans to deliver the most promising 鈥渟hovel-ready鈥 soil amendment strategies for capturing carbon dioxide in soil.
In addition to 新澳门六合彩内幕信息 Berkeley and 新澳门六合彩内幕信息 Davis, the consortium also includes scientists from 新澳门六合彩内幕信息 Merced, Lawrence Berkeley National Lab and California State University, East Bay. The group will be working with the California Collaborative for Climate Change Solutions (C4S), Larta Institute, the Almond Board of California, commercial manufacturers of compost and biochar, ranchers and farmers, carbon offset registries, the U.S. Department of Agriculture California Climate Hub, and 新澳门六合彩内幕信息 Cooperative Extension.
The project will also engage with tribal nations and indigenous communities that are already using innovative strategies and actions to enhance carbon sequestration in the land.
Media Resources
Benjamin Houlton, 新澳门六合彩内幕信息 Davis John Muir Institute of the Environment, 530-752-2210, bzhoulton@ucdavis.edu
Whendee Silver, Environmental Science, Policy and Management, 新澳门六合彩内幕信息 Berkeley, 510-643-3074, wsilver@berkeley.edu
Kat Kerlin, 新澳门六合彩内幕信息 Davis News and Media Relations, 530-750-9195, kekerlin@ucdavis.edu