Can Carbon in Bioenergy Crops Mitigate Global Climate Change?

Abstract

Different forms of carbon (C) cycle continuously through several pools in natural and managed ecosystems and spheres. Carbon's recent "commodification," as a negative environmental externality, has rendered it a "scarce" and "tradable" element. Although C supply in nature is not limited, energy is required to make it available as a plant nutrient, assimilate it in plant tissues, and sequester it as temporary or recalcitrant C in soils. Human demand for C-based energy and plantfixed C has accelerated, and altered its global cycle, raised its atmospheric content, contributed to climate change through global warming, and impacted several provisioning, regulating, and supporting ecosystem services. Agroecosystems are both sources and sinks of C. In a carbon dioxide-constrained world, plant-fixed and sequestered C in natural and managed ecosystems has a potential role in mitigating climate change, providing C-neutral and renewable bioenergy, and positively affecting ecosystem services. Due to the intricacies of the complex, interconnected biogeochemical cycles involving C, nitrogen, and water in which soils play an important role, bioenergy crops do not provide an easy solution to climate change mitigation, they may contribute to it. This chapter presents a critical review assessing the state of knowledge, and exploring opportunities and challenges of the role of C in bioenergy crops in mitigating global climate change, while sustainably providing other ecosystem services.

Biomass allocation and carbon storage in the major cereal crops: A meta‐analysis

“…The atmosphere–plant–soil system is the most crucial part of the global C cycle, with about 17% of the 720 Gt atmospheric C stock flowing through it yearly (Jaradat, 2013). The assumption is that increasing soil C stocks would only require a slight increase in the flux of C from the atmosphere to plants and from plants to soils (Mathew et al., 2017).…”