Greenhouse Gas Removal by Accelerated Peat Formation

无论是在英国还是在全球，泥炭地储存的碳都比其他任何陆地生态系统都要多。由于人类的干扰，它们正在迅速地将这些碳流失到大气中，对全球温室气体排放和气候变化做出了重大贡献。我们建议将这个问题转化为解决方案，通过重新建立和增强泥炭地独特的自然能力来从大气中去除二氧化碳，并将其安全存储数千年。我们将通过与自然过程合作来实现这一点，在可能的情况下，重新创造并在可能的情况下改善导致低地和高地英国泥炭形成的环境条件。与此同时，我们将优化条件，避免甲烷和一氧化二氮的排放，这可能会抵消二氧化碳去除的好处；开发创新的种植和管理系统，以提高二氧化碳的吸收速度；评估我们是否可以通过形成和添加生物质和生物炭来进一步增加泥炭的碳积累；以及开发新的经济模式，支持泥炭地消除温室气体，作为有利可图和可持续的农业和土地管理系统的一部分。在英国230万公顷退化的旱地和低地泥炭上实施这些新方法，有可能从大气中消除大量温室气体，安全和永久地确保一个多产、生物多样性和自我维持的生态系统中的碳，从而帮助英国实现到2050年实现温室气体净零排放的雄心。

Peatlands store more carbon than any other terrestrial ecosystem, both in the UK and globally. As a result of human disturbance they are rapidly losing this carbon to the atmosphere, contributing significantly to global greenhouse gas emissions and climate change. We propose to turn this problem into a solution, by re-establishing and augmenting the unique natural capacity of peatlands to remove CO2 from the atmosphere and to store it securely for millennia. We will do this by working with natural processes to recreate, and where possible enhance, the environmental conditions that lead to peat formation, in both lowland and upland Britain. At the same time, we will optimise conditions to avoid emissions of methane and nitrous oxide that could offset the benefits of CO2 removal; develop innovative cropping and management systems to augment rates of CO2 uptake; evaluate whether we can further increase peat carbon accumulation through the formation and addition of biomass and biochar; and develop new economic models to support greenhouse gas removal by peatlands as part of profitable and sustainable farming and land management systems. Implementation of these new approaches to the 2.3 million hectares of degraded upland and lowland peat in the UK has the potential to remove significant quantities of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere, to secure carbon securely and permanently within a productive, biodiverse and self-sustaining ecosystem, and thereby to help the UK to achieve its ambition of having net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.