While contemporary climate mitigation discourse focuses primarily on carbon sequestration and the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, this report introduces a critical additional strategy for climate stability: the restoration of Earth’s hydrological cooling system. For over 4 billion years, water has been responsible for approximately 95% of Earth’s heat dynamics through interlinked processes like evapotranspiration and condensation. Central to this system is the soil carbon sponge, a living, porous infrastructure of healthy soil that manages freshwater and enables the cooling processes essential for ecosystem function.

The global beauty industry’s reliance on natural ingredients is threatened by a hidden crisis: The degradation of the world’s soil. Healthy, microbial-rich soil is essential for producing the potent antioxidants and minerals that power skincare; without it, ingredients can become five times less effective, driving up costs and compromising product quality. To secure future supply chains, the industry must transition to regenerative agriculture - a shift which must be supported by new international and national soil policies. Ultimately, the efficacy of "natural" beauty is inseparable from the vitality of the earth, making soil restoration the industry’s most critical sustainability mandate.

Building on the 2025 Soil Security Panel Series, this report frames soil as infrastructure that is essential for global food security, economic stability, and climate regulation. With up to 40% of the Earth’s land already degraded, soil is being reframed from a neglected agricultural variable to a critical asset of national and planetary security. New legal milestones, such as the IUCN’s mandate for a global soil instrument, the Pan-African Parliament’s Model Law, or the EU Directive on Soil Monitoring and Resilience signal a shift toward treating soil restoration as a coordinated strategic priority. Ultimately, protecting this $11 trillion ecosystem is presented as a prerequisite for human continuity and global resilience.

COP30 highlighted a narrowing window for the 1.5°C goal, with the Brazilian Presidency launching a "Global Mutirão" (collective effort) to organize climate action. While energy and industry saw a massive $1 trillion investment plan, agriculture and soil remained severely underfunded, receiving only $9 billion (less than 1% of the energy commitment). Despite soil being a primary carbon sink capable of addressing 27% of the climate challenge, it continues to be marginalized in formal finance negotiations. The summit concluded with a historic call to triple adaptation finance by 2035, but warned that without a shift toward treating soil as a central climate pillar, global food and climate security remain at risk.

The global effort to combat anthropogenic climate change fundamentally requires a dual approach: a drastic reduction in carbon and other Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions and enhanced sequestration of atmospheric carbon into natural sinks. While the world's focus often centers on the energy transition, the agricultural sector remains an often underestimated area that is not merely a victim of climate change but a potential core solution.

Developed economies with high GDPs and substantial agricultural budgets, such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, and France, are uniquely positioned to lead the global mainstreaming of soil into climate adaptation strategies. In the United Kingdom, soil is central to the Environmental Land Management schemes, with a target of 60 percent of England’s soils being under sustainable management by 2030. Developed economies are investing heavily in soil as a foundation for climate resilience; however, they have yet to fully mainstream soil into adaptation planning, with harmonized monitoring, quantified targets, and practice-based, outcome-based incentives that need to be encouraged.

Soil health, anchored by soil organic carbon (SOC) and its biological, chemical, and physical foundations, offers a rigorous, globally relevant set of indicators for tracking adaptation progress under the GGA while delivering mitigation co-benefits. Recognizing soil as climate-critical infrastructure allows countries to bridge adaptation and mitigation goals, empower farmers, and unlock co-benefits across sectors.

This research paper investigates the critical nexus between soil degradation and biodiversity loss, highlighting the soil's foundational role in supporting terrestrial life and ecosystem services. It establishes that widespread soil degradation, affecting approximately 33% of global soils, significantly diminishes soil health and its inherent biodiversity. As detailed in this report, soil degradation, driven by unsustainable human activities and exacerbated by climate change, leads to a significant loss of biodiversity.

Water scarcity represents a critical environmental challenge of the 21st century, driven by climate change, population growth, and unsustainable use of the resources. While often focused on climatic factors and over-extraction, this paper highlights the frequently overlooked yet fundamental link between soil degradation and the escalating global water crisis.

The convergence of climate change, soil degradation, and food insecurity presents a profound challenge to global stability, with projections indicating a potential doubling of global migration by the end of the century.

Securing Our Future: Making Climate Finance Work for Agricultural Soil

Soil health is crucial in land restoration efforts and in addressing food insecurity, climate change, loss of livelihood, air and water pollution, and loss of biodiversity. The global narrative is slowly starting to recognize healthy soil as a solution to these challenges, and farmers as important stewards of this vital resource - but more needs to be done.

In order to meet the goals of land degradation neutrality, greater resources and effort need to be invested in restoring lands not yet severely degraded by supporting farmers in adopting a multitude of agroecological practices on annual/perennial croplands and rangelands. This must happen across all geographies, giving Asia and the Americas equal priority to Africa, as these regions hold the majority of global agricultural land.

In the world’s efforts to combat anthropogenic climate change by achieving net zero emissions, there are two key actions that must be taken on a global level. First, carbon and other GHG emissions need to be reduced and second, more carbon from the atmosphere needs to be sequestered in natural carbon sinks.

With the WHO (under the One Health Initiative) acknowledging that human health is affected by the quality of food and the quality of human living environments, this analysis summarizes the various direct and indirect pathways through which soil health affects human health. 

Reducing carbon emissions and subsequently removing them from the atmosphere is vital for keeping the global temperatures below two degrees centigrade.  In this paper, we specifically try to quantify the potential of agriculture soils’ to sequester carbon, based on secondary research.

Valluvan started his farming activity in 2009 on a 7.5-acre coconut farm. Later, he purchased another 25-acre coconut farm and 3.5 acres of land to grow grains for his own family.