STABILIZING CLIMATE THROUGH
LAND-BASED CARBON DRAWDOWN

The climate emergency has detrimental effects on our ecosystems, but managing that impact can also be an important, widespread solution to climate change.

In August 2019, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued a report called “Climate Change and Land” which described the critical importance of carbon drawdown and the enormous role land and ecosystem management must play in this effort. Large scale adoption of “natural” climate solutions, such as soil-based carbon capture, are the most cost-effective options to quickly drawdown carbon at local and global scales.

WHAT IS CARBON DRAWDOWN?

Carbon drawdown is the process through which atmospheric carbon (a greenhouse gas) is recaptured and stored into either living or non-living systems.

Living systems include plants, algae, or other organisms capable of converting CO2 into sugar or other compounds. Technology-based, non-living-system approaches are in development, but none have been able to achieve cost-effectiveness given the current value of carbon removal.

Land managers can work with plants and soils to capture carbon from the air and deposit it in soils by working in alignment with biological systems and using best practices for land management: Stimulate soil microbial communities Enhance plant productivity Reduce surface exposure and erosion These practices can achieve significant carbon capture, ranging from 1/2 ton to over 5 tons of CO2 per acre. This could offset or even reverse the impacts of burning fossil fuels, particularly as we simultaneously work to reduce our emissions from these sources.

HOW CAN WE DRAW DOWN CARBON INTO THE SOIL?

WHERE WE ARE

Boulder's Leadership

The City of Boulder and Boulder County have together launched some of the first local government soil-based drawdown initiatives in the world.

Working on public open space lands, public land management staff, local farmers, academic researchers and citizen scientists are coordinating an exciting range of different carbon farming initiatives. These can an avenue to rapidly develop new approaches which can be scaled and modeled worldwide.

BENNET
CARBON FARMING
PROJECT

Desertification Comes Home - A combination of factors including past management, climate change and impacts from prairie dogs resulted in significant soil loss on a city open space property called the “Bennett Farm.” In 2017, the city began working McCauley Farms to develop a soil regeneration project at the site.

Soil Regeneration- The city and McCauley began experimenting with strategies for regenerating the soil and site productivity and restoring carbon to the soil system. Volunteers from the Junior Rangers, Ready to Work, NRCS, Mad Agriculture and others helped implement these trial treatments.

Result - After one growing season, the combination of key line plow, compost and drill seeding showed significant positive results!

Before

After

GAME CHANGERS

THE VISION
Boulder leads regional, national, and international efforts to rapidly develop land-based carbon drawdown strategies that enhance community health, resilience and equitable economic opportunity.

CITIZEN’S SOIL
HEALTH PROJECT
Collaborative soil monitoring on over 50 agricultural sites around Boulder County.

COMMUNITY CARBON
FARMING CAMPAIGN
200+ Households in testing various soil treatments and measuring results.

CARBON FARM AND
RANCH PROGRAM
Providing technical support to local farms & ranches developing carbon farm plans.