1. Rejoinder to Comments on Minasny et al., 2017 Soil carbon 4 per mille Geoderma 292, 59–86
- Author
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Manuel Martin, Inakwu O. A. Odeh, Vera Leatitia Mulder, Brendan P. Malone, Carolyn Hedley, Vladimir Stolbovoy, Vincent Chaplot, Anne C. Richer-de-Forges, Bhabani S. Das, Yiyi Sulaeman, Chun Chih Tsui, Igor Savin, Bas van Wesemael, Ben P. Marchant, Suk Young Hong, Tor-Gunnar Vågen, Dominique Arrouays, Alex B. McBratney, Sharon M. O’Rourke, Genxing Pan, Damien J. Field, Alessandro Gimona, Biswapati Mandal, José Padarian, Laura Poggio, Budiman Minasny, Adam Chambers, Kun Cheng, Denis A. Angers, Keith Paustian, Leigh A. Winowiecki, B. G. McConkey, Zueng-Sang Chen, Uta Stockmann, The University of Sydney, InfoSol (InfoSol), Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA), Agriculture and Agri-Food [Ottawa] (AAFC), USDA Agricultural Research Service [Maricopa, AZ] (USDA), United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), Biogéochimie-Traceurs-Paléoclimat (BTP), Laboratoire d'Océanographie et du Climat : Expérimentations et Approches Numériques (LOCEAN), Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Université Pierre et Marie Curie - Paris 6 (UPMC)-Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle (MNHN)-Institut Pierre-Simon-Laplace (IPSL (FR_636)), École normale supérieure - Paris (ENS Paris), Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (UVSQ)-Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Université Paris Diderot - Paris 7 (UPD7)-École polytechnique (X)-Centre National d'Études Spatiales [Toulouse] (CNES)-Sorbonne Université (SU)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-École normale supérieure - Paris (ENS Paris), Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (UVSQ)-Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA)-Université Paris Diderot - Paris 7 (UPD7)-École polytechnique (X)-Centre National d'Études Spatiales [Toulouse] (CNES)-Sorbonne Université (SU)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Université Pierre et Marie Curie - Paris 6 (UPMC)-Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle (MNHN)-Institut Pierre-Simon-Laplace (IPSL (FR_636)), Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (UVSQ)-Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA)-Université Paris Diderot - Paris 7 (UPD7)-École polytechnique (X)-Centre National d'Études Spatiales [Toulouse] (CNES)-Sorbonne Université (SU)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Xi'an Jiaotong University (Xjtu), Institute of Resource, Ecosystem and Environment of Agriculture, Nanjing Agricultural University, The James Hutton Institute, Manaaki Whenua – Landcare Research [Lincoln], Bidhan Chandra Krishi Viswavidyalaya, British Geological Survey (BGS), University of Sydney, Dep. of Environmental Sciences, Department of Soil and Crop Sciences, Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory, Colorado State University [Fort Collins] (CSU), People's Friendship University of Russia [Moscow], Indonesian Agency for Agricultural Research and Development Ministry of Agriculture, World Agroforestry Center [CGIAR, Kenya] (ICRAF), Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research [CGIAR] (CGIAR), Département de Géographie (UCL GEO), Université Catholique de Louvain = Catholic University of Louvain (UCL), Unité INFOSOL (ORLEANS INFOSOL), United States Department of Agriculture - USDA (USA), Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Université Pierre et Marie Curie - Paris 6 (UPMC)-Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle (MNHN)-Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Université Pierre et Marie Curie - Paris 6 (UPMC)-Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle (MNHN), Landcare Research [Lincoln], World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF), Université Catholique de Louvain (UCL), Agriculture and Agri-Food (AAFC), Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle (MNHN)-Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD)-Université Pierre et Marie Curie - Paris 6 (UPMC)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut Pierre-Simon-Laplace (IPSL (FR_636)), École normale supérieure - Paris (ENS-PSL), Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (UVSQ)-Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Université Paris Diderot - Paris 7 (UPD7)-École polytechnique (X)-Centre National d'Études Spatiales [Toulouse] (CNES)-Sorbonne Université (SU)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-École normale supérieure - Paris (ENS-PSL), Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (UVSQ)-Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA)-Université Paris Diderot - Paris 7 (UPD7)-École polytechnique (X)-Centre National d'Études Spatiales [Toulouse] (CNES)-Sorbonne Université (SU)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle (MNHN)-Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD)-Université Pierre et Marie Curie - Paris 6 (UPMC)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut Pierre-Simon-Laplace (IPSL (FR_636)), Nanjing Agricultural University (NAU), Indonesian Agency for Agricultural Research and Development (IAARD), and UCL - SST/ELI/ELIC - Earth & Climate
- Subjects
010504 meteorology & atmospheric sciences ,organic-carbon ,Soil Science ,Climate change ,chemistry.chemical_element ,challenges ,[PHYS.PHYS.PHYS-GEO-PH]Physics [physics]/Physics [physics]/Geophysics [physics.geo-ph] ,01 natural sciences ,7. Clean energy ,nitrogen ,12. Responsible consumption ,mitigation ,11. Sustainability ,Life Science ,ComputingMilieux_MISCELLANEOUS ,0105 earth and related environmental sciences ,2. Zero hunger ,Total organic carbon ,Food security ,sequestration ,food security ,dynamics ,04 agricultural and veterinary sciences ,Soil carbon ,15. Life on land ,PE&RC ,Nitrogen ,losses ,Tillage ,Bodemgeografie en Landschap ,Agronomy ,chemistry ,13. Climate action ,climate-change ,tillage ,040103 agronomy & agriculture ,Soil Geography and Landscape ,0401 agriculture, forestry, and fisheries ,Environmental science ,Per mille - Abstract
We thank the authors for their thought-provoking comments on our paper. Most of the commentators agree that soil organic carbon (SOC) sequestration is important for improving the quality of soil, however they argue that we have overstated the potential of soil carbon sequestration. We welcome the comments and appreciate that the issue of SOC sequestration has always been somewhat factious (Schlesinger, 2000). We shall address the significance of the quantity “4 per mille”, reported sequestration rates, the limitation of carbon sequestration with time, and nutrient requirements. We clarify that our paper (Minasny et al., 2017) mainly deals with potentials for the 20 countries and regions, where SOC sequestration can also be seen as a way to improving the resilience of the soil to future climate change, that is, improving adaptation rather than mitigation. We believe that in some parts of the world where food security is threatened, the benefit of soil carbon management for adaptation should be stressed more than for mitigation. This is the reason why the 4 per mille initiative explicitly includes food security (Chabbi et al., 2017; Soussana et al., 2015). We need to add that the “4 per mille Soils for Food Security and Climate” initiative is just one of many national and global initiatives on SOC sequestration for mitigating climate change. The Intergovernmental Technical Panel on Soils (ITPS) of the Global Soil Partnership (GSP) discussed incorporating the topic of SOC in the IPCC Assessment Report (ARs), from AR6 onwards. The IPCC has also put a focus on soil in their upcoming special report “Climate Change and Land” (http://www.ipcc.ch/report/sr2/). The recent FAO Global Symposium (GSOC17) assembled experts engaged in FAO, GSP and its ITPS, IPCC, UNCCD-SPI and WMO activities to work together for the common goal of appropriate SOC management as part of overall sustainable soil management within the climate change mitigation and adaptation, sustainable development, Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN) and food security agendas (http://www.fao.org/about/meetings/soil-organic-carbon-symposium/en/). The Global Research Alliance on Agricultural Greenhouse Gases (GRA) focused on opportunities to reduce agricultural greenhouse gas emissions and increase soil carbon sequestration while still helping to meet food security objectives (http://globalresearchalliance.org/about/). The Common Agriculture Policy in the EU is currently being revised to include the potential use of SOC as an indicator. The 4 per mille initiative was launched at COP21, where the Paris Agreement was adopted, and one of the main aims of the Paris Agreement is to stop the planet from warming an additional two Celsius degrees. The two-degree target, although suggested by scientists through modelling work, was chosen more for political and pragmatic reasons whereby countries could agree on a target that they could work towards (Tollefson, 2015). And of course, there are many scientific critiques of this target (Knutti et al., 2016). Similarly, the 4 per mille initiative comes from a politically-driven aspiration, and our paper (Minasny et al., 2017) is a response to such an aspiration, to seek and outline possibilities based on current knowledge. The important concept is that soil and agriculture are part of the solution, and it is an interim and evidence-based solution that we can implement. Now we shall respond to each of the commentaries.
- Published
- 2018
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