In Wisconsin, a new study from researchers at the University of Wisconsin shows that crop expansion in the US between 2008 and 2012 emitted 115 million tons of CO2 and that much of that can be attributed to biofuels because it was during a period of policy-driven biofuel production increase.
The paper says that the carbon emitted from soils as a result of land clearing runs counter to the intent to reduce climate change and rather increases it instead, adding that it can take hundreds of years to recapture carbon stored in soil.