Recarbonization of Global Soils (RECSOIL): a feasible solution to decarbonize our planet at #PRECOP25 In San José
At the #PRECOP25 meeting in San José, Costa Rica from 8-10 October 2019, Eduardo Mansur, Director of the FAO Land and Water Division, stressed the importance of restoring degraded lands, and that peasants should be part of the climate solution through financial mechanisms such as RECSOIL (Recarbonization of Global Soils). He also recalled that "FAO launched the Global Soil Organic Carbon map in 2017" and that the "IPCC in its latest report on land highlighted the importance of agriculture and soils".
During the PreCOP25 “Unconventional Meeting on Climate Change”, which paves the way to the 25th Conference of the Parties (COP25) of the UNFCCC to be held in Santiago de Chile on December, delegates from 100 countries and more than 1,500 participants gathered to focus on raising the ambition required to limit the global average temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius (the central goal of the Paris Climate Change Agreement) and adapting to the worst impacts of climate change through the exchange of best practices. Among them Mr. Mansur, Director of the FAO Land and Water Division presented RECSOIL (Recarbonization of Global Soils) .
Considering the inherent capacity of soils to store carbon and the existent gap for sequestering carbon inputs from the atmosphere, RECSOIL represents a promising offsetting option in the framework of Koronivia Joint Work on Agriculture (KJWA). This innovative program constitutes an implementation tool for scaling up SOC-centered sustainable soil management SSM.
The main objective of RECSOIL is to support and improve the national and regional greenhouse gases (GHG) mitigation and carbon sequestration initiatives. The program will include financial incentives in accordance with industry standards . This will be achieved by establishing a robust methodology that allows carbon credits to be traded. The Marketplace & Clearinghouse will enable and promote a liquid, generic market for soil-based credits, and others. As a result, additional and multiple benefits can be achieved: yields can increase, biotic and abiotic resilience of crops improves, and carbon and ecosystem services lost through traditional farming recover. Thus carbon sequestered due to sustainable soil management produces additional relevant benefits at farmer level.