Proceedings of the 2023 International Conference “ECONOMIC SCIENCE FOR RURAL DEVELOPMENT” No 57 Jelgava, LBTU ESAF, 10-12 May 2023, pp. 20-26 DOI: 10.22616/ESRD.2023.57.002 20 ORGANIC SOILS ON THE WAY TO CLIMATE NEUTRAL EUROPEAN UNION: THE EXAMPLE OF ESTONIAN AGRICULTURAL LAND Jelena Ariva 1 , MA; Ants-Hannes Viira 2 , PhD and Jüri Lillemets 3 , MA 1, 2, 3 Estonian University of Life Sciences, Institute of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences Abstract. European Union climate policy envisages climate-neutrality by 2050 and fosters Member States to find opportunities to reduce GHG emissions. Land use is a key sector to achieve net-zero emissions. To understand how each Member State can contribute to achieving climate goals, the impact of land use change on GHG emissions should be studied at the national level. The use of organic soils for crop production has a detrimental climate impact due to the large carbon stock decrease. In Estonia, approximately a quarter of GHG emissions from agricultural soils results from cultivation of organic soils. This study aims to show the impact of a scenario that assumes part of agricultural land (AL) will be converted into forest land (FL) and green focus areas; and that AL on organic soils will be converted into grassland (GL). Furthermore, 20% of this area will be rewetted. The future scenario of AL use was created using the Shared Socio- economic Pathways methodology. IPCC Guidelines were used in assessing GHG emissions. AL use changes following this scenario would help reduce GHG emissions by 90% by 2050 compared to 2020. In case of rewetting 20% of converted organic soils, the reduction would be 82% under assumptions about Estonian conditions. It is important to convert cropland on organic soils to GL and FL in order to reduce GHG emissions. However, before designing policy measures for changing AL use, it is important to analyse the actual status of organic soils in Estonia and determine emission factors at the national level. Key words: organic soils, GHG, agricultural land use change, future scenarios. JEL code: Q54, Q58 Introduction The European Union’s (EU) climate policy envisages achieving climate-neutrality by 2050 through significant reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and finding ways to achieve a net-zero emissions balance (Climate change: what …, 2023; Fit for 55, 2023). The land use, land use change and forestry (LULUCF) sector in combination with agricultural non-CO2 GHG emissions, the so-called land sector, has the potential to become climate-neutral already by 2035. In addition to that, improved forest management, afforestation, avoided deforestation for forest lands (FL), stopping agricultural land use on organic soils and improved cropland (CL) management strategies on agricultural land (AL) have potential to cost-efficient GHG emission reductions and carbon sequestration. Additionally, the land sector can promote synergies between land-based mitigation measures and make possible more integrated policy-making and policy implementation at national and the EU level (Commission proposal on…, 2021; General approach on…, 2022). Considering this, the agricultural land (AL) and its use will play an important role in reducing GHG emissions and removing CO2 from the atmosphere. In this case, the potential of the land sector needs more research and analysis, especially on the impact of agricultural land use (ALU) and agricultural land use change (ALUC) on GHG emissions. According to EU 2022 National Inventory Submissions (National Inventory Report and Common Reporting Format Table), crop production on organic soils has the most negative climate impact due the carbon stock decrease (European Union (Convention), 2022) and the first action on these areas should be conversion of CL to grassland (GL) or FL. Some studies showed that rewetting organic soils might also have a positive effect on reducing GHG emissions or help organic soils to become even a carbon sink (Wilson D. et al., 2016; Bianchi A. et al., 2021). In Estonia, approximately a quarter of GHG emissions from agricultural soils results from the cultivation of organic soils. In addition, the CL on organic soils causes significant carbon loss in the soil, and as a result, CL emits about 2.7 times more CO2 than it sequestrates (in the LULUCF sector) (Estonia. 1 E-mail: Jelena.Ariva@emu.ee 2 E-mail: Ants-Hannes.Viira@emu.ee 3 E-mail: Jyri.Lillemets@emu.ee