The summit runs from 9am – 5:30pm,
followed by a reception with a cash bar.
Summit Agenda

Featured Speaker:  MacArthur ‘Genius’ David Montgomery, author of Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations  

The Northwest Biocarbon Summit is designed for people who are developing the science, policies, best practices and business models for biological carbon storage that we will need to scale worldwide in the next decade to address climate change. 

The Summit will bring together top biocarbon practitioners, researchers, agency leaders, conservationists and policy experts in Oregon and Washington spanning the range of relevant sectors (forestry, agriculture, green cities, organics recycling, and blue carbon).  

A key purpose of the Summit is to stoke an interdisciplinary conversation that bridges the silos between sectors and to build the collaborative relationships necessary to establish our region as a leading laboratory and incubator for biocarbon solutions.   We see Oregon and Washington leading the way in developing innovative and effective strategies to increase biological carbon storage and to build a vibrant ‘restoration economy.’ 

Biocarbon Solutions:  A key principle is that the best biocarbon solutions, ones that are most likely to scale and endure, make sense from many angles and have multiple benefits.  Many biocarbon solutions are being pioneered on the basis of their non-climate benefits.  Top biocarbon solutions include:

• Green infrastructure and watershed restoration
• Organics recycling – including compost and biochar -- to build carbon-rich soils
• Managing forests for carbon
• Blue carbon strategies to restore wetlands and sea grass beds
• Soil building agriculture for croplands and rangelands
• Large-scale landscape conservation

The Biocarbon Imperative: The Northwest Biocarbon Initiative (NBI), which is hosting the Summit, aims to establish the region as a leader demonstrating the essential role that biological systems play in ensuring long-term climate stability by absorbing carbon dioxide and storing it in plants and soils.  NBI is rooted in emerging climate science indicating the key to stabilizing the climate to avoid catastrophic impacts on human populations and natural ecosystems is to return atmospheric CO₂ levels from over 390 parts per million today to 350 ppm or less.  In addition to rapid transition from fossil fuels, reaching Target 350 requires scalable strategies to protect and increase carbon stored in forests, farms, wetlands, communities and other ecosystems, in ways that deliver multiple benefits.  NBI is dedicated to establishing the Northwest as a leading laboratory and incubator developing those strategies and the scientific underpinnings that validate them.

For more information contact Rhys Roth: rhys@climatesolutions.org; 360-352-1763, x23.