新研究顯示，只要恢復和保護世界的土壤，每年就能夠吸收超過50億噸的二氧化碳，相當於美國一年的排放量。
去年聯合國政府間氣候變化專門委員會說，全世界需要更加努力地保持土地吸收並儲存使全球變暖的溫室氣體的能力，防止它從碳匯變成碳源。
Last year the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said that the world needed to work harder to retain the land's ability to absorb and store planet-warming greenhouse gases and prevent it turning from a carbon sink to a source.
全球僅1米的土壤的含碳量就和目前大氣中的一樣多，在樹木腐爛回到土壤中時就能將二氧化碳鎖住。
Just the first metre of soil around the world contains as much carbon as is currently in the atmosphere, locking up the CO2 sequestered in trees as they decompose and return to the earth.
在《Nature Sustainability》雜誌中，一篇新論文分析了將二氧化碳鎖在土壤中的可能性，發現如果妥善管理，土壤可以吸收四分之一的二氧化碳。
A new paper in the journal Nature Sustainability analysed the potential for carbon sequestration in soils and found it could, if properly managed, contribute a quarter of absorbtion on land.
陸地固碳總量為238億噸二氧化碳，所以從理論上講，土壤每年能吸收55億噸。
The total potential for land-based sequestration is 23.8 gigatonnes of CO2-equivalent, so soil could in theory absorb 5.5 billion tonnes annually.
吸收總量中約40%僅僅通過保持現有土壤不變就可以實現，也就是說，全球不要繼續擴大農業和種植面積。
Most of this potential, around 40 percent, can be achieved simply by leaving existing soil alone - that is, not continuing to expand agriculture and plantation growth across the globe.
此次研究的主要作者、大自然保護協會的首席土壤科學家Deborah Bossio說：“大部分對生態系統進行的破壞都是為了擴大農業面積，所以減緩或停止這種擴張是一項重要戰略。”
"Most of the ongoing destruction of these ecosystems is about expanding the footprint of agriculture, so slowing or halting that expansion is an important strategy," said Deborah Bossio, principal study author and lead soil scientist for The Nature Conservancy.
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