Warming of 2C ‘would release billions of tonnes of carbon from soil’

Soil is a huge, but little-recognised, carbon storage facility.

The world’s soils contain two to three times more carbon than the atmosphere, but as average global temperatures creep up, the rate of decomposition of organic matter also goes up, meaning the amount of carbon released from soils also rises.

A new study estimates that an average global temperature increase of 2C - an outcome the Paris climate agreement aims to prevent - would lead to around 230 billion tonnes of carbon being released from the world’s soil.

This is the equivalent of more than four times the total admissions from China over the last 100 years, and more than double the emissions of the USA over the same timeframe.