ICOS participated in Carbon Farming Summit in Ireland this week. The Summit programme addressed the upcoming certification framework for Carbon Removals and Carbon Farming, CRCF. During 2025, the commission will provide proposals for the first certification methods and for the rules on verification and registries, as confirmed by Christian Holzleitner from DG Climate in his opening speech.
An important outcome of the Summit is that there is a strong necessity of a common data set for supporting and benchmarking models. This data set should be completely open and available for everybody who wants to work on the topic. It should be comprehensive, including different methods like repeated stock take as well as flux measurements. Important are ancillary data such as management history (including lateral carbon transfer with harvest and manure), weather data and soil characteristics.
ICOS can be an important data source for flux data in this context. There are long-term cropland sites within ICOS with a comprehensive set of ancillary data. Furthermore, ICOS is well connected to the flux community and can support other cropland sites in adding their data to a common data set. We are ready to be part of an initiative to support the common data pool supporting and benchmarking models.
