Professor Pete Smith emphasised that soil carbon has the potential to act as a headline indicator of soil health, with strong links to productivity, resilience, ecosystem services, and broader sustainability goals. Yet this potential depends on robust, integrated, harmonised and credible MRV systems to track changes in soil carbon and meaningfully assess soil health. In this sense, soil carbon underpins soil health – but only careful measurement can unlock its full value.
Realising the potential of soil carbon sequestration for atmospheric greenhouse gas removal
As Professor of Soils & Global Change at the University of Aberdeen, who better than Professor Pete Smith to give the conference a clear and concise breakdown of the current possibilities and limitations of soil carbon sequestration in reducing atmospheric greenhouse gases. His findings simplify messaging about its role in climate change mitigation. He provided that clear balance between tempering optimistic expectations and addressing the challenges from more sceptical voices, while clarifying the reasons to be hopeful.