A Powerhouse Climate Change Solution

August 2024 | Read the full Global Biochar Industry Update

August marks the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples, which reminds us of biochar’s Indigenous roots. Not only from the Amazon, as terra preta, but also in other places in the Americas, and from Africa, particularly from Indigenous peoples of Ghana and Liberia.

Anecdotally, I met a UAE-based farmer last year at COP28 UAE who told me that his ancestors had been pyrolyzing agricultural residues for centuries, and he only recently learned the name for this process as “biochar.”

It is from the ancient practice that we see a lineage in today’s current industry, creating a beautiful appropriate technology spectrum from artisanal kilns or pyrolytic cookstoves to the Novocarbo “Carbon Removal Parks", and the other large-scale industrial, closed-loop technologies removing carbon, producing biochar, and generating energy.

In Oct. in Italy, a fortunate 80 people have the opportunity to see, and taste, biochar’s effects on winemaking, and experience new technologies for processing olive oil residues in situ, not to mention the rich networking between participants.

We also will soon announce IBI’s 2025 events as save-the-dates. All I can say now is, if you live or work in East Africa, Asia Pacific, Latin America, or North America, we are coming to you.?

Wherever you are, we have virtual events in September that we hope you’ll join us for:?

• Navigating Carbon Dioxide Removal: The Role of Policy, Regulation, and Value Chains
• IBI Members-Only Event: Rethinking Logistics for Effective Biochar Production

IBI is also pleased to support — from afar — an upcoming training in Pakistan in Sept., that will include an CSI Artisanal C-Sink training, alongside material modeled from the IBI Biochar Academy and adjusted to meet the regional and contextual needs. This training is conducted by Dr. Haider Khan, who is leading the IBI Pakistan project to help farmers in two provinces transition to biochar production from highly harmful crop residue burning.?

With so many events around the world for the burgeoning biochar industry, make sure to keep up-to-date on IBI’s Event Calendar, and please share any events, news, or jobs you have with IBI audiences. Also, we’ve just launched a partnership interest form to collect ideas for events, to support funding applications, and to generally better connect with, and support, the global biochar industry.?

Finally, I’ll leave you with some language we’re testing out:?Biochar is a powerhouse climate change solution that delivers environmental, social, and economic impact — right here, right now.

What do you think? Weigh in with your ideas in the comments for how to best represent the many ways biochar solves problems.

Sincerely,

Wendy Lu Maxwell-Barton , Executive Director