About the event

As humanity struggles to lower its greenhouse gas emissions, the need to remove carbon from the atmosphere and store it securely for the long term becomes increasingly urgent.

Natural solutions, such as planting more trees, are proven to work and deliver other benefits too. However, in urban environments, there is limited space for extensive tree planting, carbon-storing vegetation must compete with demands for recreational space, allotments, or playgrounds.

While tree management options such as pollarding, coppicing or hedgerow planting offer some flexibility, they still suffer from lack of available space to expand into.

This leaves the soil as the only carbon storage option with sufficient capacity. Adding carbon to urban soils not only removes it from the atmosphere, but also supports their life and function. The trick is how to do this in a way that carbon stays in the soil for as long as possible, and that is the topic of this session from Professor Lukac of Reading University speaking for Reading and District Natural History Society