Making Soils into Carbon Sinks: A Sociology of Soil Carbon Quantification Through a French Model

Abstract

Since COP21 in 2015, carbon neutrality targets have emphasized the enhancement of various carbon sinks, including soils, to help sequester carbon away from the atmosphere. What does it take to make soils into carbon sinks? This article focuses on a French digital model of soil carbon cycling named AMG, which quantifies soil carbon stocks and their evolution under various agricultural practices. We examine how AMG circulates and transforms within a loosely connected network of actors and organizations involved in agricultural development, climate research, land-use planning public administrations, and carbon commodification. We show how the model evolves into three distinct yet interconnected regimes of carbon quantification—in climate academic research, local public action, and carbon markets—that contribute to building and expanding a sociotechnical infrastructure for quantifying soil carbon sequestration potential. Our findings contribute to the literature on environmental quantification and knowledge infrastructures by calling for a shift from viewing knowledge infrastructures as stable and fixed, toward an approach that emphasizes open-ended, flexible, and ongoing processes of infrastructuring. We also contribute to the literature on soil–human relations by emphasizing how this model fosters a new focus on the active role of soils in the global carbon cycle and climate change mitigation.