A report belatedly published by the European Commission underlines soils' crucial role in mitigating climate change and it is putting pressure on five member states opposing the proposed soil framework directive - including the UK - to reconsider.
The review of information on soil/climate change interactions was completed in December following the Commission's CLIMSOIL study but has only now been published.
It reveals that Europe's soils contain an estimated 73-79bnt of carbon and 50% of that is sequestered in peat bogs of the UK, Ireland, Sweden and Finland; losing even 0.1% would be the equivalent of 100m extra cars on the road.
"Europe's soils urgently need better protection and the answer must be a co-ordinated solution," said environment commissioner Stavros Dimas.
The report stresses the key importance of land use in soil carbon levels and says that soils under grassland and woodland are net accumulators of carbon while the ability of agricultural soils to sequester carbon depends on management.
But intensively managed arable land is losing carbon.
Soil contains twice as much carbon as the atmosphere and the flow of carbon dioxide between the world's soils is ten times emissions from fossil fuel consumption.
Despite this says the report, soil offers no "golden bullet" in combating climate change because of the slowness of sequestration and potential reversibility but it could play an important role in climate mitigation alongside other measures.
Climate change is also expected to have a significant effect on soil carbon, but less than land use changes.
The report has little to say about the effects of urbanization on soil carbon but notes that action on soil sealing is a key objective of the currently stalled directive.
Freedom to seal soil has been a significant factor in behind-the-scenes UK opposition to the proposed directive.
