MARVIC

In pursuit of climate neutrality, the European Commission acknowledges that not all greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions can be prevented, particularly those originating from agriculture and related biological processes. Carbon removal, particularly through carbon sequestration in land use, becomes pivotal in addressing this challenge. The EU-funded MARVIC project aims to support the Commission in incentivising farmers to engage in these endeavours. To that end, it will aid the design of scientifically sound and robust monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) methods for carbon stock alterations in soil and woody biomass, as well as soil GHG emissions. The methods are cost-effective and can be adapted to the local context.

The EC has set the ambition to become climate-neutral by 2050. As not all greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions can be avoided, such as GHGs from biological processes in agriculture, carbon removal will become increasingly essential to meet the neutrality targets set. Besides carbon capture and storage by industry, carbon sequestration in the land-use sector will need to compensate for the remaining emissions. In this respect, reliable systems to monitor, report and verify efforts by land managers have become increasingly important. This is particularly relevant for the international GHG inventory reporting, and for developing payment systems to reward land managers for sequestering carbon. 

The interest in CF schemes is substantial, as illustrated by the many (pilot) payment schemes initiated in recent years. Most schemes experiment on relatively small geographical areas with a reasonably small number of land managers involved. In the ‘Sustainable carbon cycles communication’ launched in December 2021, the EC has expressed the challenging ambition that ‘every land manager should have access to verified emission and removal data by 2028 to enable a wide uptake of CF’. 

MARVIC has been specifically designed to generate instruments and knowledge to fulfil this ambition. The main goal of MARVIC is to develop and test a reliable Framework for designing harmonised, context-specific MRV systems (‘MRV Framework’) for assessing carbon stock changes in soils and woody biomass and soil GHG emissions. Developing a generic MRV Framework applicable to all agricultural land-use activities is essential for boosting faith in European public and private CF schemes.