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Agricultural emissions are getting more attention from U.S. officials, researchers, and industry professionals.
农业排放越来越受到美国官员、研究人员和行业专业人士的关注。
One big area of debate is the link between carbon storage and carbon markets.
争论的一大领域是碳储存和碳市场之间的联系。
Last week, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced a $300 million investment to monitor agricultural emissions.
上周，美国农业部宣布投资3亿美元用于监测农业排放。
The investment will help create a research group to monitor carbon levels in soil.
这笔投资将有助于创建一个研究小组来监测土壤中的碳含量。
American lawmakers also proposed a measure to support research needed to "properly credit soil carbon storage."
美国立法者还提出了一项措施，以支持“适当评估土壤碳储量”所需的研究。
The USDA announcement and the law are both aimed at the difficult question of how to measure carbon stored in soil.
美国农业部的声明和这项法律都是针对如何测量土壤中碳储量这个难题的。
The issue is important if the young soil carbon market is to avoid the opposition directed at current carbon credit markets.
如果年轻的土壤碳市场想要避免当前碳信用市场面对的竞争者，这个问题就很重要。
The Congressional Research Services describes a carbon market as an economic idea "that supports the buying and selling of environmental commodities that signify GHG (greenhouse gas) emission reductions" or storage.
美国国会研究服务部将碳市场描述为一种经济理念，它“支持买卖象征温室气体减排”或存储的环保商品。
The general idea is that some kinds of farming methods can support carbon storage.
总的想法是，某些耕作方法可以支持碳储存。
As a result, some farmers can get money in the form of carbon offsets — payments that companies can make that support carbon storage in farms.
因此，一些农民可以通过碳补偿的形式得到钱——公司可以支付这笔钱来支持农场的碳储存。
Shalamar Armstrong is an associate professor at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana.
沙拉玛·阿姆斯特朗是印第安纳州普渡大学西拉法叶分校的副教授。
"The more carbon you store from the atmosphere with your crops, and the more crops grown throughout the year, you offset some of your waste," he said.
他说：“你种植的作物从大气中储存的碳越多，全年种植的作物就越多，你就可以抵消一些废物。”
The carbon that was stored would have instead been released into the atmosphere, he explained.
他解释说，反之，储存的碳会被释放到大气中。
But much about carbon storage remains unknown.
但关于碳储存的很多事情仍然未知。
"The science piece (of carbon credits) has really lagged behind, particularly when it comes to things like monitoring, reporting and verification," said Cristel Zoebisch, a policy director at climate organization Carbon180.
气候组织Carbon180的政策主管克里斯蒂尔·佐比什说：“（碳信用）这一科学成果确实落后了，尤其是在监测、报告和核实等方面。”
Armstrong has been trying to help fix the problem of measuring carbon storage.
阿姆斯特朗一直在努力帮助解决测量碳储量的问题。
He runs a lab where researchers are investigating how farming method affects the amount of carbon in soil across different kinds of land.
他管理着一个实验室，在那里研究人员正在调查耕作方法如何影响不同类型土地土壤中的碳含量。
He and others at Purdue have been studying soil samples that date back more than 40 years.
他和普渡大学的其他人一直在研究40多年前的土壤样本。
He hopes his findings will help farmers make decisions that could result in earnings from storing carbon and without losing any crop profit.
他希望他的发现将帮助农民做出决定，既能从储存的碳中获得收益，又不会损失任何作物利润。
But other experts worry that even if farmers do get paid for storing soil carbon, bigger issues remain.
但其他专家担心，即使农民真的因储存土壤碳而获得报酬，更大的问题仍然存在。
Carbon offsets in the U.S. have to meet four conditions.
美国的碳补偿必须满足四个条件。
They have to store carbon that would otherwise be released.
他们必须储存原本会被释放的碳。
The offsets also have to be verifiable in data, immediate and long-lasting, said John Sterman, a professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
麻省理工学院教授约翰·斯特曼表示，这些补偿还必须在数据中得到即时和长期的验证。
Carbon storage research might make the offsets more verifiable, but such research does not deal with other problems.
碳储存研究可能会使补偿更具可验证性，但这样的研究并不涉及其他问题。
For example, many American farmers do not own the land on which they grow crops.
例如，许多美国农民不是他们种植作物的土地的所有者。
As a result, these farmers cannot guarantee that carbon stored on their land will stay in place if someone else works the same property.
因此，如果其他人在同样的土地上耕作，这些农民无法保证储存在他们土地上的碳将保持不变。
Barbara Haya of the Berkeley Carbon Trading Project at University of California, Berkeley, says the research she has worked on shows that the effects of carbon offset projects are commonly overestimated.
加州大学伯克利分校伯克利碳交易项目的芭芭拉·哈亚说，她所进行的研究表明，碳补偿项目的影响力通常被高估了。
Carbon trading has, in her words, "failed miserably" over the last 20 years.
用她的话说，碳交易在过去20年里“惨败”。
She advises moving away from the process.
她建议远离这一过程。
Jared Huffman, a lawmaker in the U.S. House of Representatives, last month proposed a bill to support farmers in making improvements to soil health.
美国众议院议员贾里德·赫夫曼上个月提出了一项法案，以支持农民改善土壤健康。
He said farmers in the area he represents would be interested in entering carbon markets with strong accounting systems.
他说，他所代表的地区的农民将有兴趣进入拥有强大会计系统的碳市场。
But he added that those hoping for serious climate action should not depend only on offsets.
但他补充说，那些希望采取严厉的气候行动的人不应该只依赖于补偿。
I'm John Russell.
约翰·拉塞尔为您播报。
译文为可可英语翻译，未经授权请勿转载！
