Op-Ed: Biochar Carbon Removal Strengthens Global Food Security
By: Wendy Lu Maxwell-Barton, International Biochar Initiative
Since September of 2023, the world has known that the global community is not meeting the goals set in the Paris Accord— and the window to meet them without exceeding 2 degrees C or warmer is rapidly closing. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change’s (UNFCCC) Global Stocktake process emphasized both the need for emissions reductions, as well as carbon dioxide removal (CDR) to slow and eventually reverse climate change-caused global warming.
While CDR technologies come in many forms and scales, the technology funded at a very high rate to date is direct air capture, garnering some US$4B in funding, tax breaks, and other sources of government funding. Despite this, there is less well-known yet predominant CDR technology that simultaneously delivers improved soil health, strengthened food security, and increased farmer profits through increased crop yields and lowered input costs on top of carbon dioxide removal. What am I referring to? Biochar carbon removal.
Originally used by Indigenous farmers in the Amazon basin thousands of years ago, biochar is a charcoal-like material created by heating organic materials that would otherwise go to waste — like crop residue, manure, and non-commercial forest trimmings. Used as a soil amendment, either alone or fortified with nutrients for specific types of soil, biochar locks carbon into the soil, neutralizing its damaging effects to the atmosphere while becoming beneficial to the soil. Essentially, biochar stops biomass from emitting carbon during its natural decomposition process.
Biochar enhances soil health by reducing acidity, improving water retention and drainage, and can be added to or even replace chemical fertilizers. Biochar production can help farmers across geographies both adapt to and mitigate climate change, super-powering their ability to ensure food security worldwide.
As climate change intensifies the challenge of feeding 9.6 billion people by 2050, investments in climate-smart agriculture systems and technologies are critical to not only reduce carbon emissions but also increase crop yield as more countries experience threats to food security.
Sustainable biochar production is noted as a climate change solution under regenerative agriculture frameworks from organizations such as Project Drawdown and One Earth; however, the multi-purposes and full potential of biochar is often not widely known.
Biochar carbon removal is a combination of both a technological and a nature-based solution, one that currently makes up over 90% of delivered carbon credits in 2023, per CDR.FYI. After removing carbon dioxide through producing biochar, the actual biochar is used to create a host of social, economic, and environmental benefits. These benefits can be substantial for the communities around the world on the frontlines of climate change – particularly in the Global South — where countries that contributed the least to climate change are experiencing the worst effects of it.
Compared to other CDR methods, biochar is a technologically-ready and low-cost-per-tonne-of-CO2-removed solution that not only removes emissions but also provides a host of social and economic co-benefits, from regenerative properties to job creation and revenue generation in agricultural communities on the frontlines of climate change.
Considering that forest, land, and agriculture sectors contribute around a quarter of global greenhouse gas emissions, there is also a hidden opportunity; the estimated 140 billion tonnes globally per year of agriculture and forestry biomass waste streams.
Waste byproducts go by many names: coffee and risk husks, sugarcane bagasse, and corn stover are just a few of the commodity crops grown around the world. Turning these organic biomass streams into biochar carbon removal and biochar not only reduces waste, but it can create a beneficial alternative to crop residue burning that causes poor air quality and ensuing human health problems.
It is due to this hidden opportunity that biochar’s carbon removal potential is massive. According to recently published research, funded by the International Biochar Initiative, biochar can remove 6% of global emissions annually – this is the yearly equivalent of India’s total greenhouse gas emissions, or taking 800 coal power plants offline. Biochar tech is already the leading form of carbon removal credits, with over 90% of delivered carbon credits from biochar. Moreover, biochar carbon removal can cost as much as a third less than alternative carbon removal technologies on a per-tonne basis.
You may be wondering: can biochar really work? It is already! Many individual nations and carbon markets are scaling biochar production, showing it’s a real solution that works out in the world at scale. In Europe, biochar production capacity doubled between 2018 and 2020. In urban areas, the Stockholm Biochar Project exemplifies how cities can use biochar production to transform local organic materials into carbon removal. City residents and authorities work together to collect local waste to be made into biochar at multiple plants. The biochar is then made available to local residents for their gardens or sold back to local governments for parks and public spaces, accomplishing true circularity. This project is now active in ten cities around the world.
Admittedly there are different stories in the Global South, where many governments lack the financing and institutional capacity to support biochar production at scale. Research shows that biochar can potentially reduce emissions by over 30% in Eswatini and more than 20% in Malawi and Ghana, respectively. In Ghana, where poor soil quality is rampant, farmers have already reported increased average yields of 30% after using biochar.
There are vibrant business case studies, too: Husk Ventures in Cambodia uses rice husks to create biochar, creating female-farmer-led development. NetZero in Brazil is creating community electricity alongside biochar in a coffee-producing area. PlantVillage in Kenya is helping communities fight invasive plants by creating biochar from them, then improving farmer’s soil health for better yields alongside CDR.
It is for these reasons — without even addressing biochar industrial uses in high-embodied carbon materials like concrete, asphalt, and the built environment — that biochar and biochar carbon removal should be a part of every countries’ net zero, decarbonization, and / or national determined contributions (NDCs) strategies.
This February, I invite everyone in the biochar industry to explore the International Biochar Initiative’s forthcoming Global Biochar Market Report; the inaugural results of a global survey, hosted in partnership with the U.S. Biochar Initiative, that will provide a much-needed market snapshot for the global biochar industry. The report benefits not only industry participants but can also serve as valuable information for policy makers and investors worldwide.
