Action commune de Koronivia pour l’agriculture

Joint OCB/GSP Training workshop for reporting soil Carbon Stock Change in national greenhouse gas inventories

Ateliers précédents

16/12/2022

A training workshop on ‘Reporting Soil Carbon Stock Change in National Greenhouse Gas Inventories’  divided into two segments (online: on 29 November-1 December 2022 and  in-person on: 12-16 December 2022) took place at the perfect time – between the UN Climate Conference COP27– where the establishment of Sharm el-Sheikh joint work on implementation of climate action on agriculture and food security was agreed upon, and the World Soil Day on 5 December.

The workshop was jointly organized by the FAO’s Office of Climate Change, Biodiversity and Environment (OCB) and the Global Soil Partnership (GSP) with support from the Technical Support Unit of the Task Force on Inventories of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) of Japan. More than 60 experts (a combination of agriculture and environment officials and scientists) from 42 countries participated in the training workshop.

Ronald Vargas, Secretary of the GSP in his opening remarks, stressed that “soil can help all of us in achieving a more sustainable future” but that the key challenge is in managing it so that emissions are reduced and CO2 is returned back underground. He encouraged the participants to share the main lessons learned from this webinar with their government to translate them into action. Gen Kunieda, Director of the Global Environment Office of MAFF Japan also highlighted the potential of carbon storage in soil, which was presented in the IPCC working group III report on mitigation, published in April 2022. In the policy context, he introduced Japan’s Sustainable Food System Strategy, and its willingness to support countries.

During the opening as well as throughout the webinar the importance, potential strategies and approaches to include soils in the GHG inventories were addressed. The advantages of soil carbon models as well as the need for continued sampling for monitoring, verifying and reporting were presented.

Building on the recommendations from the workshop ‘Estimating carbon stock changes from soil for climate-resilient and sustainable rice production systems’ held in June, the aim of the workshop was to provide:

  • Technical guidance on basic approaches, methods and tools for reporting GHG emissions/removals under the Enhanced Transparency Framework (ETF) of the Paris Agreement.
  • An introduction to the new version of the IPCC Software which was launched at COP27.
  • Opportunities for peer-to-peer learning of best practices
  • An introduction to the activities and tools of the FAO’s GSP for data collection and management including the Global Soil Organic Carbon Sequestration Potential Map (GSOCseq), the RECSOIL initiative and the Global Soil Information System (GloSIS). 

The presentations dived deeper into the topics which were touched upon in the June workshop, hence providing a great variety of information. The participants were satisfied with the wealth of lessons and moreover were encouraged by Iordanis Tzamtzis, the FAO climate change expert’s key message “Reporting of carbon stock change (CSC) in mineral soil in national GHG inventories is mandatory for all countries under the ETF”. Collaboration between environment/climate change ministries and soil scientists is necessary for sound data collection and management.

The participants were also pleased to learn that the FAO’s GSP offers a wide range of training opportunities to model and map soil organic carbon stock changes following the GSOCseq approach as well as a mechanism to kick-start projects aimed at scaling up SOC-centered sustainable soil management practices under RECSOIL initiative.

There is so much potential in soil as a solution to climate change and our sustainable future. 

Agenda

Presentations:

(i) Day 1 (12 December 2022): Official opening; Reporting CSCs in GHGIs following Tier 1; Japan’s example using Tirer3; Country Presentations

  • The training was officially opened by Ms Hang Thi Thanh Pham (Senior Resilience Officer, FAO-RAP) and Dr Bunjirtluk Jintaridth (Director of department of administration and collaboration, CESRA and LDD)
  • Mr Iordanis Tzamtzis introduced the participants to the methodologies and data requirements following the IPCC Tier 1 approach for reporting CSCs here (check out also the abbreviation file)
  • Mr Tzamtzis concluded his part with a hands-on practice with an example excel sheet
  • Dr Yasuhito Shirato (National Institute of Agro-Environmental Sciences, NARO of Japan) presented how Japan is reporting CSCs following Tier 3 by using the RothC model that was parameterized based on long-term experiments in Japan here
  • The day was concluded with an exercise which consisted of each country presenting their national experience on reporting CSCs in GHGIs without exceeding a 5 minute time limit. The following countries presented: Cambodia; Indonesia; Philippines; Sri Lanka; Laos; Thailand
  • Main highlights from the country presentations:
    • Most countries have baseline SOC stock maps created through the support of the GSP
    • Indonesia stands out for not only having a SOC stock map, but also yearly high resolution land cover maps and is intent on implementing a Tier 3 approach for reporting CSCs
    • The need for further capacity development efforts was stressed

(ii) Day 2 (13 December 2022): Introduction to the GSP tools on SOC; Introduction to R and RothC;

  • The reporting officer presented the following GSP tools related to SOC here:
    • Global Soil Organic Carbon Sequestration Potential Map (GSOCseq)
    • GSOC MRV protocol
    • RECSOIL initiative
  • Several countries who already submitted a national GSOCseq expressed their interest in updating and improving it. Various countries were interested in taking part in the GSOCseq and RECSOIL initiatives
  • During the rest of the day the reporting officer provided a hands-on demonstration with a practice dataset
  • The focus of the demonstration was to show how to generate a map on SOC sequestration potential in agricultural lands following a scenario based approach using a spatially explicit version of RothC - as described in the GSOCseq Technical Specifications and Country Guidelines here

(iii) Day 3 (14 December 2022): Modeling and Mapping using RothC in R; Discussion Workshop wrap up

  • The Reporting Officer continued day three with the hands-on demonstration for the generation of a national GSOCseq product here and here
  • The demonstration was concluded with an overview of how the approach could be modified for complementing a Tier 3 reporting approach here
  • The need for field data and long-term experiments for validating and parameterizing the approach was underscored
  • The first part of the workshop was concluded with an interactive exercise in which the participants prepared a short presentation following several guiding questions
  • Through the interactive exercise the following points were highlighted:
    • Several countries have over the years generated the necessary information for Tier 2 reporting of CSCs through the support of the GSP, however more specialized workshops focusing on how to use the data products for reporting such as this should be conducted
    • Further collaboration between the FAO’s OCB division and the GSP was therefore welcomed and encouraged
    • All countries confirmed that they will start reporting CSCs in GHGI following Tier 1 and that further workshops should be organized to transition to Tier 2 or even Tier 3 reporting
    • See here: Indonesia; Laos; Thailand; Philippines, Sri Lanka, Cambodia (summary and template)

(iv) Day 4-5 (15-16 December 2022): Pathways to Net Zero for Agrifood and Land Use Systems in Asia; LDD Laboratory Tour

  • During the second part, the workshop was merged with the workshop “Pathways to Net Zero for Agrifood and Land Use Systems in Asia: Long-term Strategies, Carbon Neutrality, Transparency, and the Carbon Market ” in the same venue organized by the ASEAN Climate Resilience Network, chaired by the Thailand Department of Agriculture, the EU-ASEAN Enhanced Dialogue Instrument (E-READI), the FAO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), and the GIZ Agritrade Project
  • The objective of the event was to facilitate the exchange on work across the region to develop and implement Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) and Long-term strategies for low emission development (LTS) priorities for the agriculture and land-use sectors (see Annex 2)
  • Day 5 and the Workshop was concluded with a visit to the Land Development Department (LDD) Laboratory
  • The tour consisted of a demonstration of lab methods to measure SOC stocks
  • The tour was concluded with e presentation of Thailand’s Soil Doctor’s Program, which has over the years trained over 70 000 farmers on the importance of soil testing

Photogallery: 'Training workshop for reporting soil Carbon Stock Change in national greenhouse gas inventories'

Participants and Final report (soon available)

Useful links: