Restoring Carbon Sinks in Agriculture through Carbon Credits

When the world ceases emitting CO₂, the atmospheric concentration of CO₂e will decline very slowly and it will take centuries to return to pre-industrial levels. As such, carbon sinks that absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere are critical to limiting global temperature increases to 1.5 degrees. Given that half of habitable land is used for agriculture, turning agricultural lands back into carbon sinks is a critical climate adaptation strategy. Players have leveraged the voluntary carbon credit market as a financing mechanism to monetize and scale this strategy. This paper will describe the state of play in developed and emerging countries and the critical issues that need to be resolved. In the end, it highlights startups, technological innovations, and policies that are needed to scale these initiatives.