Simultaneous carbon storage in arable land and anthropogenic products (CSAAP): Demonstrating an integrated concept towards well below 2°C

From hemp grown on carbon-vulnerable lands to long-lasting bio-based products: Uncovering trade-offs between overall environmental impacts, sequestration in soil, and dynamic influences on global temperature

“…French CV land was identified (Shen et al, 2022) as areas currently under the following landcovers (reported as the percentage of the total CV-land area): (i) rapeseed cultivation (20%), (ii) intensive grasslands (53%), (iii) natural grasslands (20%), and (iv) woody moorlands (7%).…”

“…Indeed, with the lower GMTC of its non-biogenic flow (but similar biogenic flow), the CP scenario could mitigate global warming better than the IB scenario. If the results are extrapolated from 1 ha to the total area of CV land in France (e.g., 2,400,000 ha; Shen et al, 2022), cultivating hemp instead of the initial vegetation in the IB and…”

“…However, this factor did not impact the actual CSAAP scenarios (the IB and CP scenarios). In the land selection, explained in a previous work (Shen et al, 2022), the criterion of non-competition with food demand was considered. Moreover, the potential feed from initial vegetation (e.g.…”

“…These climate targets imply increasing and safeguarding carbon sinks such as soil and plants. This requirement inspired the concept of simultaneous carbon storage in arable land and anthropogenic products (CSAAP), a strategy to use plants that can store additional carbon in the soil as soil organic carbon (SOC) during the growth phase and in the technosphere as bio-based products obtained from the harvestable biomass (Shen et al, 2022).…”

“…CV land is marginal land that does not compete with crops or with other existing activities and has a low SOC stock, defined as lower than 50 t ha −1 in (Shen et al, 2022). The selection of this land type in the French landscape has been explained in a previous study (Shen et al, 2022) that identified up to 2,400,000 ha of CV land that could potentially be adapted to conduct CSAAP in France using eight woody species and eight herbaceous plants. As a promising species, hemp (Cannabis sativa L.) is proposed in this study to evaluate the application of CSAAP in France.…”