Cover
Volume 5, Issue 3 (2026) – 19 articles
Cover Picture: Agriculture and land-use change (LUC) account for about 25% of anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions[1]. Between 1855 and 2022, these emissions contributed an estimated 0.55 °C of global warming[2], driven primarily by methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), and carbon dioxide (CO2) generated through livestock production, manure management, paddy rice production, fertiliser application, soil disturbance, land-use change, and on-farm energy use[3,4]. Reducing this sector’s impact on climate change is therefore central to achieving net-zero targets. In addition to mitigation options that reduce non-CO2 GHG emissions, agricultural soils have the potential to contribute significantly to atmospheric carbon dioxide removal through soil carbon sequestration (SCS).
Soils store nearly twice as much carbon as the atmosphere (~1,500 Pg C to 1 m depth) and are the largest terrestrial carbon pool[5] with the potential to increase depleted carbon stocks. Therefore, they have been widely framed as a scalable sink for atmospheric CO2[4]. Increasing soil organic carbon (SOC) is not only a mitigation strategy, but can also improve soil health and support food security[6,7].
However, the potential for soil carbon sequestration remains limited by different challenges. Soil carbon sequestration can vary across soil types, climates, and management practices, and can be constrained by saturation effects over time[7]. A further challenge for carbon footprint accounting is quantifying SOC change. The effects of climate, land use, management practices, and soil properties on SOC dynamics remain incompletely understood, while the development of robust monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) frameworks remains complex and subject to uncertainty[8].
In this article, “overestimation” refers to situations where the climate mitigation benefits attributed to SCS exceed those that can be reliably measured and sustained in practice because important biophysical constraints and accounting uncertainties are not fully incorporated[9]. Such overestimation may contribute to inflated mitigation claims and carbon credits that do not fully reflect long-term carbon storage, potentially undermining the credibility of carbon markets and carbon farming schemes, particularly where additionality, permanence, leakage, and MRV requirements are insufficiently addressed[10,11].
Recent literature has highlighted limitations, uncertainties, and methodological challenges associated with accounting for SCS, including saturation, permanence, additionality, leakage, and measurement uncertainty. These challenges have led several authors to argue that accounting and crediting approaches may overstate the magnitude or durability of climate mitigation benefits when these constraints are not fully incorporated into accounting frameworks[7,12-14].
Here we examine the key biophysical constraints and accounting challenges that may lead to overestimation of SCS in carbon footprint accounting and discuss their implications for the credibility of mitigation claims associated with soil carbon sequestration.
Soils store nearly twice as much carbon as the atmosphere (~1,500 Pg C to 1 m depth) and are the largest terrestrial carbon pool[5] with the potential to increase depleted carbon stocks. Therefore, they have been widely framed as a scalable sink for atmospheric CO2[4]. Increasing soil organic carbon (SOC) is not only a mitigation strategy, but can also improve soil health and support food security[6,7].
However, the potential for soil carbon sequestration remains limited by different challenges. Soil carbon sequestration can vary across soil types, climates, and management practices, and can be constrained by saturation effects over time[7]. A further challenge for carbon footprint accounting is quantifying SOC change. The effects of climate, land use, management practices, and soil properties on SOC dynamics remain incompletely understood, while the development of robust monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) frameworks remains complex and subject to uncertainty[8].
In this article, “overestimation” refers to situations where the climate mitigation benefits attributed to SCS exceed those that can be reliably measured and sustained in practice because important biophysical constraints and accounting uncertainties are not fully incorporated[9]. Such overestimation may contribute to inflated mitigation claims and carbon credits that do not fully reflect long-term carbon storage, potentially undermining the credibility of carbon markets and carbon farming schemes, particularly where additionality, permanence, leakage, and MRV requirements are insufficiently addressed[10,11].
Recent literature has highlighted limitations, uncertainties, and methodological challenges associated with accounting for SCS, including saturation, permanence, additionality, leakage, and measurement uncertainty. These challenges have led several authors to argue that accounting and crediting approaches may overstate the magnitude or durability of climate mitigation benefits when these constraints are not fully incorporated into accounting frameworks[7,12-14].
Here we examine the key biophysical constraints and accounting challenges that may lead to overestimation of SCS in carbon footprint accounting and discuss their implications for the credibility of mitigation claims associated with soil carbon sequestration.
Back Cover
Volume 5, Issue 3 (2026) – 19 articles
Back Cover Picture: Sustainable dietary choices can yield synergistic benefits for both human health and the environment, highlighting the importance of recipe-level analysis to provide actionable guidance for consumers. Chinese cuisines are highly diverse and are often classified into regional cuisines, with the Chinese eight cuisines as the most widely recognized grouping. The environmental and health impacts of these diverse cuisines remain unclear. This study quantified the cradle-to-table carbon footprint and nutritional profiles of 320 recipes from the Chinese eight cuisines, covering nine food categories and 13 cooking methods. The results show that the average carbon footprint of the Chinese cuisines was 1,337 (1,224-1,453) g CO2e, some 60%-73% lower than that of Western meals. Among the eight cuisines, Sichuan Cuisine had the lowest greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, with an average of 1,057 (970-1,144) g CO2e. The main contributors to GHG emissions from Chinese cuisine were non-ruminant meat production (30%) and cooking (17%). The most common Chinese cooking methods were stir-frying (16 min, 25 g CO2e, 20-30) and boiling (46 min, 287 g CO2e, 231-352), both of which generated significantly lower emissions than the Western roasting method (112 min, 1,447-2,127 g CO2e). A correlation analysis between nutrition and carbon footprint reveals that protein, cholesterol, and niacin were positively correlated with GHG emissions, whereas dietary fiber and carbohydrates showed negative correlations. This study provides standardized recipe-level data characterizing the environmental and nutritional performance of Chinese dishes, providing a scientific basis for promoting carbon labeling policies and the transition to low-carbon diets.
