Review of Robbins, M (2011) Crops and carbon: paying farmers to combat climate change. London, Earthscan

Excerpt

Typical policy responses to climate change have focused on reducing the emissions themselves, for example through the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). With the political negotiations encountering stumbling blocks, and ongoing fossil fuel-based development, greenhouse gas emissions have continue to rise, prompting scientists to investigate other options to mitigate those emissions in order to reduce the adverse impacts of dangerous climate change. One such option is sequestration of carbon, which can take place through the oceans, or through land. Given that human control and use of land is arguably greater than the oceans, policy-makers and development practitioners alike have seized the opportunity to seek a win-win scenario of greenhouse gas mitigation and support for agricultural development. …