The climate crisis is not only about reducing future emissions. The carbon already dumped into the atmosphere must also be removed. According to the article, humans have released around 3,700 billion tons of greenhouse gases since the Industrial Revolution, with CO₂ forming about 70 percent of the total. Global temperature has already risen by about 1.3°C, while emissions are still rising instead of falling fast enough.
Nature already has a powerful carbon-removal system: plants, soil, crops and forests. Through photosynthesis, farms absorb CO₂ and store carbon in roots, leaves, stems and soil. Yet farmers are paid only for food, fibre and timber — not for the climate service they provide to the entire planet.
This is climate injustice. Fossil-fuel industries create the pollution, but farmers and rural communities are expected to clean the atmosphere for free. The article argues that farmers must be paid fairly for carbon sequestration as a right, not charity. In India, the value of CO₂ absorbed and stored by croplands is estimated at around ₹67,000 per hectare per year.
A fair climate policy must make polluters pay and use carbon tax revenues to support farmers, farmworkers, soil health and ecological farming. Paying farmers for climate services is not only rural justice — it is a necessary step toward climate survival.
