UN Supremo says soil carbon is on track

This is good news coming out of the Copenhagen process:

Addressing the participants at a Land Day gathering held on Saturday, 6 June, in Bonn, Germany, Yvo de Boer, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, stressed the significance of climate change on future food security and said 89% of mitigation in agriculture can be achieved by soil carbon sequestration through measures such as cropland management, restoration of organic soils and degraded land, bioenergy and water management.

De Boer said "Copenhagen is the time to make sure win-win effects become reality across the world."

Recalling that scientific and political challenges that inhibited the comprehensive elaboration of land-based adaptation and mitigation strategies for the Kyoto Protocol, De Boer said "science has since caught up, and monitoring carbon sequestration into soils can be monitored with much greater accuracy" and that "a successful outcome will include incentives for the agricultural and forestry sectors to adopt decisive mitigation measures."

While the climate change negotiating process was moving to better accounting processes, he said, progress will depend on the ability to manage some of the uncertainties, which, he added, "this forum, and by linking climate change to the broader development agenda can do." For the full statement visit: website: http://www.unccd.int/publicinfo/landday/docs/090606_speech_Bonn.pdf