Farm & Forest Carbon Solutions Initiative

The Bipartisan Policy Center’s Energy Program focuses on developing pragmatic, evidence-based energy and climate policies to achieve meaningful progress toward a low-carbon future. Natural carbon removal by farm and forest lands is emerging as a critical component of legislative efforts to address climate change. Action is needed to develop long-term revenue streams for soil and forest carbon practices that create economic opportunities in rural America, store and reduce carbon emissions, and achieve other significant environmental co-benefits.

Our Farm and Forest Carbon Solutions Initiative has identified a broad need to find common ground and to develop a shared agenda that can unite stakeholders from agriculture, forestry, environmental organizations, conservation groups, rural communities, and other interests. We are engaging with a diverse coalition to provide a voice for natural carbon solutions in the policy conversations that are occurring now around economic stimulus and recovery in the near term, and pragmatic climate solutions in the longer term. Finding new ways to incentivize farming, ranching, and forestry practices that deliver both climate and economic benefits—and that position farmers, ranchers, and forest managers as valued contributors to climate solutions—will be instrumental in creating a bipartisan coalition for effective climate action.