Maximizing the Impact of Natural Climate Solutions

The Environmental and Energy Study Institute (EESI), U.S. Nature4Climate, and the Bipartisan Policy Center held a briefing on natural climate solutions, which leverage natural processes—like those in forests, grasslands, soils, and wetlands—to reduce carbon emissions, sequester carbon, and bring new income and employment opportunities to rural America. Natural climate solutions as a whole are a widely popular strategy to address climate change, with 92% of people across the political spectrum in support of their implementation.

This briefing explored the federal role in maximizing the benefits of natural climate solutions. The panel convened experts studying natural climate solutions and practitioners implementing programs supported by federal agencies. These panelists discussed what is working, what we are still learning, and what the next phase of natural climate solutions policy and implementation looks like to support the long-term productivity and resilience of America’s natural and working lands and the prosperity of rural communities.

Highlights

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Natural climate solutions are a subset of nature-based solutions. They sequester carbon and reduce greenhouse gas emissions while providing additional co-benefits for human well-being, ecosystem health, and biodiversity.
To best serve farmers and ranchers implementing these solutions, technical assistance is paramount. For example, local natural resource experience can provide information on cover cropping, which is a nuanced practice that requires knowledge of different soils, weather, water access, crop varieties, and termination methods.
Forest regrowth is an integral natural climate solution. Growing more resilient forests will help address the wildfire crisis, sequester carbon, and enhance biodiversity.
Voluntary carbon markets are one tool designed to bolster natural climate solutions. The White House, Department of Energy, Department of Treasury, and Department of Agriculture released a joint statement of policy principles to support a high-integrity voluntary carbon market.

Shannon Heyck-Williams, Associate Vice President of Climate and Energy, National Wildlife Federation

Nature-based solutions are actions that incorporate natural features or processes to protect, conserve, restore, sustainably use, and manage natural or modified ecosystems to address socio-environmental challenges while providing measurable co-benefits.
Natural climate solutions are a subset of nature-based solutions. They sequester carbon and reduce greenhouse gas emissions while providing additional co-benefits. Natural climate solution strategies include avoiding emissions and protecting ecosystems, improving stewardship and management of lands or resources, and restoring native habitats.
Co-benefits refer to the cumulative positive impacts on human well-being, ecosystem health, and biodiversity that result from the implementation of nature-based solutions.
Trees are an important natural climate solution for many landscapes due to their carbon sequestration potential, but afforestation is not always the answer. Afforestation is the planting of trees where forests have not existed in recent history. It can compromise the ecological balance of certain environments like grasslands. Climate-smart reforestation—planting and restoring native trees, especially ones that exhibit climate resilience—should be the priority.
Urban tree cover provides co-benefits like improvements to public health and livability, stormwater management, cleaner air, cooling and shade, and wildlife habitat.
Many nature-based solutions are also undertaken to bolster the resilience of communities and ecosystems via climate adaptation.
An example of an adaptation-focused nature-based solution is a living shoreline, which is a protective coastal infrastructure consisting of natural materials that help manage storm surge and sea level rise. It is often a more effective and flexible alternative to gray infrastructure, like a seawall.
For every $1 spent on natural hazard risk-reduction activities, such as living shorelines, the United States saves $6 in disaster costs, according to the National Institute of Building Sciences.
Carbon dioxide removal is the intentional removal and storage of excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. When natural climate solutions are employed for this purpose, they should be permanent, additional, verifiable, and enforceable.

Jennifer Nelligan, Chief Program Officer, National Association of Conservation Districts (NACD)

NACD represents the nation’s 3,000 conservation districts, which are local units of government authorized to support working lands conservation. Conservation districts are used for agriculture, ranching, and forestry, and also deliver ecosystem services beneficial to wildlife and recreation.
Conservation districts are generally directed by a board of local elected officials. Conservation districts are not monolithic: they exist in urban communities, rural communities that include large production farms, and rural communities with small, diversified producers.
To be effective, conservation must be locally led, voluntary, incentive based, and economically viable.
Soil is one of the largest terrestrial carbon sinks, so soil health is a primary concern among farmers implementing carbon sequestration practices, which include cover crops, nutrient management, and no-till agriculture.
Farmers are creative when it comes to enhancing soil health. In Rota, Northern Mariana Islands, producers use coconut shells instead of mulch as soil cover and root protection.
About 60% of land in the United States is privately owned and about 40% is farmland. This means that producers have a sizable and important role in sequestering carbon.
The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) (P.L. 117-169) provided historical investments to scale conservation practices and natural climate solutions.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA’s) Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) Working Lands for Wildlife (WLFW) frameworks take a data-driven approach to landscape-scale conservation to understand where protection needs to be targeted.
To best serve producers in implementing these solutions, specific expertise is paramount. For example, cover crops are a nuanced practice that requires knowledge of different soils, weather, water access, crop varieties, and termination methods.
Federal technical assistance dollars provide the ability to deliver these services.
In fiscal year (FY) 2023, NRCS received 11,550 applications from producers interested in implementing climate-smart practices. However, they were only able to fund 45% of the requests through the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, Conservation Stewardship Program, and Agricultural Conservation Easement Program, even with the IRA’s additional conservation funding.
NACD and the Soil Health Institute studied the economics of soil health management systems on 30 U.S farms and found that they increased net farm income by an average of $65 per acre. This increase is largely driven by gains in crop yield and land value.
USDA’s Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities program promotes long-term market demand for climate-smart commodities that are needed to bolster natural climate solutions.
NACD is partnering with NRCS, The Corps Network, and AmeriCorps to create the Working Lands Climate Corps to engage at least 100 young adults in learning technical skills and conducting climate work across the country.

Kari Kostka, Director of External Affairs, Idaho, The Nature Conservancy

Two-thirds of land in Idaho is publicly owned and administered by the federal government.
Studies by The Nature Conservancy have shown that implementing natural climate solutions to protect, better manage, and restore forests, grasslands, and wetlands could contribute up to one third of the greenhouse gas emission reductions needed to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.
The Nature Conservancy is a partner in the City of Trees Challenge, which is an initiative that began in 2020 to plant an urban tree for every household in the city of Boise and a seedling in the Boise National Forest for every city resident by the year 2030.
The program used Tree Equity Scores by American Forests to determine which neighborhoods in Boise needed trees most.
Only 6% of post-wildfire planting needs are met annually on national forest lands. To support much-needed regrowth, the City of Trees Challenge’s reforestation efforts have focused on seedling planting in areas damaged by the Pioneer Fire of 2016.
So far, more than 16,000 urban trees have been planted in Boise out of a 100,000-tree goal. A seedling for each Boise resident, amounting to 235,000 total trees, has already been planted in the Boise National Forest in just four years, way ahead of the 10-year goal.
Reforestation projects sequester carbon, clean the air, improve quality of life, increase property values, and reduce urban heat.
Using funding allocated by the IRA, the USDA Forest Service awarded an Urban and Community Forestry Grant of about $1.1 million to the Treasure Valley Canopy Network to expand efforts to boost tree cover throughout the greater Boise area.
The state of Idaho has an established history of collaborative forest management, including policies like the Idaho Roadless Rule, the Good Neighbor Authority, and the Shared Stewardship agreement.
Recent highlights of Congressional support for forest health are the “wildfire funding fix” (a provision in the FY 2018 federal appropriations) and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) (P.L. 117-58), which included programs like the Repairing Existing Public Land by Adding Necessary Trees Act (REPLANT Act).
Moving forward, work needs to be done to develop capacity in the Forest Service and supply chain to keep expanding reforestation efforts, especially when it comes to the workforce, seed production, and nursery capacity. There is also a need to invest in reforestation on private lands.
Forest regrowth is an integral natural climate solution. Growing more resilient forests will help address the wildfire crisis, sequester carbon, and enhance biodiversity.

Lesley Jantarasami, Managing Director, Energy Program, Bipartisan Policy Center

The Bipartisan Policy Center launched the Farm and Forest Carbon Solutions Task Force chaired by former Sens. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.) and Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) to bring together agriculture, forestry, rural, and climate focused constituencies around a shared agenda for natural climate solutions. The task force is developing policy recommendations to move the needle in the energy and climate area.
Over the past four years, the federal government secured multiple energy and climate policy wins, including The Energy Act of 2020 (P.L. 116-260), IIJA, the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022 (P.L. 117-167), and the IRA.
Annually appropriated funds are a key factor in investing in the institutional infrastructure for federal agencies to properly administer and implement natural climate solutions. For example, the USDA is involved in the delivery of the Conservation Stewardship Program, Conservation Reserve Program, and the Forest Service’s Wood Innovations Program.
Another pathway to advance natural climate solutions is through federal agency regulations and executive orders.
The Farm and Forest Carbon Solutions Task Force prioritizes programs where the return on private and public investment would be greatest, while also considering the barriers that are stopping landowners from implementing natural climate solutions. The task force prioritized six policy categories:
- Conservation programs
- Technical assistance and workforce
- Voluntary carbon markets
- Finance and insurance
- Resilience
- Research and innovation
Task force suggestions ensure that agriculture and forestry landowners are able to participate in voluntary carbon markets.
The voluntary carbon market nearly quadrupled in 2021, expanding to approximately $2 billion in cumulative credit demand. In 2023, the market fell to around $723 million, but that is still a larger amount than that of any year since 2021. Within these markets, nature-based credits are commanding higher prices than other types of projects.
In 2021, Congress passed the Growing Climate Solutions Act of 2021 (P.L. 117-328), which created a role for the USDA to provide farmers, ranchers and forest landowners with technical assistance in accessing the voluntary carbon market.
A strong voluntary carbon market necessitates robust supply from farmers incentivized by a high return on investment and robust demand from purchasers who have confidence in the quality of credits.
The White House, Department of Energy, Department of Treasury, and USDA released a joint statement of policy principles to support a high-integrity voluntary carbon market. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission followed suit and also released a statement guiding regulation of derivatives in the market.
The next opportunity for movement on natural climate solutions legislation is the Farm Bill, which the House passed in late May 2024. However, the Senate has not introduced a version of the bill yet.

Q&A

Q: How do we ensure that natural climate solutions are durable?

Heyck-Williams

To achieve political and social durability, solutions must respond to community needs and deliver benefits visible to the public.
Natural climate solutions can be made more ecologically durable by gathering more information about their carbon sequestration potential in different contexts.

Nelligan

Voluntary and incentive-based conservation is incredibly important. Farmers need to be ensured that the practices are economically viable, there is demand for their product, and there is a low administrative burden.

Kostka

The science and continual planning of these solutions needs to be optimized. When it comes to planting trees, partners in Idaho are investing in community knowledge of how to manage and maintain trees for the future.

Jantarasami

Continuous learning is important to adapt programs to what is working and what is not.
Political durability is necessary to make the long-term investments required to address climate change, while also engaging people who are not traditional climate stakeholders but want to be a part of the solution.

Q: What are your thoughts about the difference between the House Farm Bill language and the Senate Farm Bill framework on climate guardrails for IRA investments? What do local stakeholders think about this issue?

Nelligan

Farm Bill conservation programs have been delivering benefits to producers for decades and continue to need support and funding. It is important for producers to have the flexibility to address the conservation-related concerns specific to their land.

Jantarasami

This is an active area of debate and will be a key issue area for the conservation title of the Farm Bill.

Q: What co-benefits of natural climate solutions excite the public the most?

Heyck-Williams

These are community-specific and dependent on the issues they face. People often value co-benefits that improve climate resilience. For instance, coastal communities may be interested in flood mitigation and storm surge protection, while communities in the West would respond well to wildfire risk mitigation.

Nelligan

The majority of farms are family-owned and most producers want to leave their land to their children better than it is today. The soil health and water quality opportunities with conservation practices are the most compelling message when talking to producers.

Kostka

Benefits that impact clean air and clean water, wildlife, and recreation resonate with people who live in the western United States in particular.
In agriculture-intensive states like Idaho, the majority of the economy centers around agricultural and forest products. People care about sustaining these industries and protecting livelihoods.

Jantarasami

Local, natural resource-based economies are heavily intertwined with community identity, and natural climate solutions offer a pathway to engage these industries in a productive conversation about climate change.

Q: Do you have any sense of how residents of Boise talk about the City of Trees Challenge?

Kostka

It is certainly a well-known initiative within the community. Boise is known as the “City of Trees,” so the program is relevant to the city’s cultural identity, and people tend to seek out opportunities for local projects like this that can make a difference in the climate crisis.

Q: In the face of terrible wildfires, what can we do to sustain the seedling supply chain? Is the need the same across all regions?

Kostka

There are now only six nurseries in the western United States that supply both the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management restoration efforts. The IRA has supplied funding to expand the capacity of these nurseries. There is work being done by private nurseries and farmers to grow native seeds and tribes are developing their own greenhouses to meet some of the need, but these efforts need to continue to scale up.

Jantarasami

Land-grant universities play an important role in agricultural research and natural climate solutions, and many have on-site nurseries that can help with seedling supply chain issues.

Q: How do you introduce natural climate solutions to students to build public support?

Heyck-Williams

The National Wildlife Federation’s EcoSchools U.S. program helps schools implement curricula relevant to wildlife and the climate. It is challenging to find funding to support curriculum development for schools.

Q: Any final takeaways about how to make federal programs advancing natural climate solutions more flexible?

Heyck-Williams

It is key to understand the nuances that different regions and ecosystems offer when it comes to effectively implementing natural climate solutions.
It is also time for a clearly-communicated, unified national goal on natural climate solutions.

Nelligan

Conservation is important—it enables natural climate solutions to have a dual positive impact on the environment and producers' financial well-being. For these programs to work well, statutes and policies should be designed to support all different kinds of producers and the unique characteristics of their farms and ranches.

Kostka

Do not discount the potential for conservative states, like Idaho, to be involved in natural climate solutions. These states often exhibit broad support.
This work does not have to be limited to the sphere of the federal government, as other forms of collaboration are also effective.

Jantarasami