Since more and more this is likely to become the main "strategy" that countries like Canada and Australia are to "commit to", people should know what this lie is.
It behooves us all to speak to the elephant and call him a big grey liar, and stop pretending he's not there.
--M
Sydney Morning Herald (Sydney, Australia)
December 14, 2009
Green pot of carbon gold lures politicians
GUY PEARSE AND GREGG BORSCHMANN
IT WAS a candid remark in a private briefing. But the comments by an Australian climate negotiator in Copenhagen late last week gave some insight into where Labor intends to find a potentially ambitious cut in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020.
It will be in the same place that Liberal leader Tony Abbott is indicating he will go looking for his ''practical measures'' to solve climate change - and nowhere near the smokestacks of coal-fired power stations or greenhouse-intensive industries. It will be in the rolling back paddocks, grazing lands and grasslands of rural Australia, from Burke to Barcaldine, from Wubin to Wangaratta - a green pot of carbon gold.
It is hard to put a dollar value on the potential bonanza. Equally, it is hard to put an exact figure on the possible emissions reductions, but the predicted numbers are mind-boggling - enough, some say, to make Australia carbon neutral for the next three or four decades. And all that without having to impose a nasty tax, set up a complicated emissions trading scheme or clean up a single polluting pipe. It is a political win-win.
The climate change negotiator reportedly told a private briefing last week at the UN climate conference that Australia would be able to commit to a 25 per cent cut in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 if proposed land-use rule changes pushed by developed countries are accepted as part of a new global climate deal.
The changes are highly contentious in Copenhagen, as developing nations recognise the potential for countries such as Canada, the US and Australia to offset industrial pollution against carbon sequestration in rural landscapes. Intuitively, it seems implausible that simple changes in how we manage agricultural land might return much carbon to our soils. It's hard to imagine that perennial pastures, reducing tillage and fertiliser use and improving fire management could be any match for the relentless 24/7 pollution billowing from coal-fired power stations and grid-locked freeways.
Yet, because we have hundreds of millions of hectares of land, very small increases in soil carbon could generate huge reductions in our net emissions.
Under the Kyoto Protocol, Australia has no incentive to take up these opportunities, because we don't have to account for most land-related emissions. And from the figures revealed today showing a 657 per cent jump in the numbers since 1990, it is obvious why Australia at present prefers not to account for them.
Australia has led the charge at climate change negotiations over recent years to change the way that land-use emissions are counted in the next global climate deal. If it carved out so-called natural or ''exceptional'' events such as bushfires and drought, which cause the huge spikes in our emissions, Australia could claim carbon credits from ''forest and land-use management''. This then opens up rural lands to so-called ''carbon farming'' on a grand scale.
What both major parties appear to recognise is that, with luck and time, land use can be turned into a huge carbon sink that can postpone industrial emission cuts for possibly another decade. Asked about this potential, Climate Change Minister Penny Wong told the ABC's Four Corners program: "We need it to be counted in the international accounting rules so that it counts towards Australia's target."
Last year, in his official climate report to the Government, economist Ross Garnaut estimated that increasing soil carbon in grazing areas and crop lands could store 354 million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year for 20-50 years (equivalent to more than half of Australia's current annual emissions). Garnaut's work is backed up by the CSIRO and the Wentworth Group.
Christine Jones (who inspired former opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull and Coalition climate action spokesman Greg Hunt) is a renowned soil scientist who argues that holistic management of agricultural lands could make Australia carbon-neutral for decades.
If accurate, that is enough to soak up Australia's entire post-industrial contribution to climate change - with simple land-care practices, and without the costly pyrolysis reactors required to produce biochar.
It is no wonder that Tim Flannery refers to Australia's ''terrestrial carbon'' offset potential as ''an ecological magic pudding'', arguing that Australia could export 100 million tonnes worth annually to the US.
Of course, that won't happen if the US achieves what Australia has in mind - offsetting its industrial and energy emissions with rural carbon certificates.
This would not cost taxpayers a fortune. At present, soil carbon credits trade on the Chicago Climate Exchange for much less than $US5 ($A5.47) a tonne. Without emissions trading, farmers would be price takers. And emission targets need only be met during the years specified in a new Kyoto protocol or global treaty - perhaps not until 2020. Plenty of time to get farmers organised.
To many scientists and environmentalists (not to mention financial entrepreneurs), it makes sense to link forest protection and soil restoration directly with carbon money. What better way to drive large-scale action than with the money polluting industries must pay to reduce or offset their greenhouse pollution? To those who have campaigned in vain to save the world's tropical forests, or watched Australia's farmlands being trashed, carbon offsets are the holy grail. Most of the practices that would boost carbon storage in soil and forests would also boost biodiversity and agricultural productivity.
Many farmers are also already seeing it as a big win. At seminars and expos across the country, farmers are signing up to registers and for contracts to sell their soil carbon credits. Farmers agreeing to reduced tillage, bio-fertiliser use and other soil conditioning are told to expect a 1 per cent increase in soil carbon in the top 150 millimetres of their soils - up to 55 tonnes of carbon dioxide credit a hectare. Farmers organisations are jumping on the bandwagon in what's being billed as the ''soil carbon solution''. Even coal giant Rio Tinto has chipped in some money.
The catch is that if storing carbon in rural soils is seen as a substitute for burning less fossil fuel, scientists say that the global climate is in deep trouble. The so-called grandfather of climate science, NASA's James Hansen, leads a growing push among scientists arguing that the only really safe territory for atmospheric carbon dioxide is 350 parts per million or less. It is currently at 387 ppm. Burying carbon in rural lands may draw down some of that atmospheric carbon, but only if it is on top of big emission cuts from industrial sources, especially the burning of coal.
The suspicion that we may be comparing apples with pears when it comes to measuring carbon at the smokestacks and out in the back paddocks is backed by an insider who knows intimately how Australia does its greenhouse gas accounting. This source said there were huge problems trying to account for carbon in rural landscapes.
"This is all about paper shuffling. It's not about reducing emissions. It's about being seen to be complying [with targets] for political reasons. Whatever the outcome, I would not be confident that it will be effective in doing what it's meant to do - and that is cutting emissions," he said.
The source said land-use accounting was incredibly important to the Government, and for this reason had been kept ''in-house''.
Almost all other greenhouse accounting, including transport and energy, is done by outside consultants. Those calculations are relatively precise and easy to cross-check - but that is not the case with land-use carbon accounting. "It makes you wonder what they're up to,'' the source said.
Guy Pearse is the author of High & Dry and Quarry Vision; Gregg Borschmann is environment editor with ABC Radio National breakfast.
Source: The Age
