Publications

The conversion and expansion of the infrastructure required for the energy transition has special impacts for soils. How this influences the CO₂ balance in particular is hardly discussed. This is surprising because soils store five times as much carbon as all above-ground biomass. On the other hand, there is no alternative to the climate targets and the energy transition. They demand a comprehensive technological change in energy supply, industry, mobility, buildings and agriculture.

This connection between soils and climate protection is examined in the fifth impulse study of the Clean Energy Forum (CEF) prepared by Professor Dr. Reinhard Hüttl and Dr. Uwe Schneider. This is intended to initiate a discussion of this hitherto neglected topic of the energy transition, in which all relevant stakeholders should be involved. The aim should be to achieve a balance between the necessary expansion of renewable energies and the infrastructure required for this and the protection of soils, forests and peatlands. Their CO₂ storage function must be preserved in the interest of climate neutrality.

Read dissenting opinion of the BEE

The reply of the authors to the dissenting opinion of the BEE