Updated FAQs for Carbon Farmers

Many questions have arisen which challenge believers in the possibility of a market for soil carbon credits to respond. Here are the answers we have collectively developed (and your contribution is welcomed - michael@carboncoalition.com.au):

Q. There are many questions about Global Warming and the role of CO2. How can you be sure Climate Change is real?

A. You don't need to believe in Global Warming. It may or may not be real. But what is real is the market-based response the world has adopted, even the USA and Australia. The climate sceptics, despite the sincerity of their beliefs, are not going to stop the carbon market emerging as a global response. Australian land managers will be expected to address their emissions, like any other industry. But unlike many industries, agriculture has the capacity to capture and store carbon. These can be used to help offset emissions. The economics of agriculture will shift and we must be prepared to shift ahead of it.

Q. The official position is that our soils can't capture and store much carbon because they are too old, too degraded to put on more than a minor amount of carbon in 20 years. This is the conclusion of the scientists who compiled our National Carbon Accounts System and Minister McGauran and many organisations like the Farm Institute and the Grains Council have poured cold water on soil carbon sequestration as a possibility. It seems like a lot of trouble for little gain. Why bother?

A.1. We believe the science on which the Australian Greenhouse Office bases its advice to the Commonwealth Government and the industry is flawed because it studied only traditional farming techniques that have been stripping the carbon out of Australian soils for 200 years. They did not study progressive land management techniques that grow soil carbon, eg. grazing management, pasture cropping, biological farming, and combinations of these techniques. The National Carbon Inventory project was designed to reveal how bad things are, not how good thigs can be. The recent commissioning of two projects to study 'carbon farming' techniques is almost an admission of the gaps in the data sets. Meanwhile the official position remains unchanged.

A.2. The Australian Greenhouse Office and the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) say that agriculture's greenhouse gas emissions from livestock (methane) and fertilizer (nitrous oxide) are greater than the entire transport industry. Graziers are going to be presented with a bill for their stock's emissions, in the same way companies that own the coal-burning power stations have been forced to buy carbon credits to offset their emissions. We believe soil carbon credits will be needed to help landholders offset their emissions liability. If the agriculture industry does not engage the issue head on, it will be treated as the NFF was treated by the Commonwealth Government's Task Force on Carbon Trading: we won't have a seat at the table when the decisions are being made. (We are the No. 2 emitter, yet we did not have a place on the Task Force. The no.3 emitter - Transport - was included.) If this continues to be the approach of Government, we can expect to be treated as the landholders stripped of their rights to clear woody weeds were treated.)

A.3. Eventually extreme weather events plus the failure of popular solutions to gain traction should make officialdom more open-minded. But we can't afford to wait 10 years while they change their minds, according to Stern and NASA.

Q. Primary producers will be expected to account for the whole carbon footprint of a farming enterprise. This means becoming liable for the methane emissions from livestock (which are 23 times more potent than CO2) and nitrogenous fertilisers (N2O is 300+ times more potent than CO2). Doesn't this make it dangerous to get involved in the carbon market? Do we have more to lose than to gain?

A. We have two choices: Choice 1 - stay out of the market and allow the Government to 'encourage' us to adopt 'best practice' solutions, managed by a 'benchmarking' system, dictated by a scientific regime that has a track record of methodological mistakes based on failure to understand processes being undertaken on properties. Choice 2 - demand to be allowed to join in the market on an even playing field. Get the science right on soil carbon and get the science right on methane and nitrous oxide.**

Q. Under Kyoto principles, all sequestration techniques must obey the "100 year rule". How can we guarantee we won't lose soil carbon for 100 years?

A.1. Soil Carbon Credits are being sold on the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) on 4 year contracts. Kyoto is only part of the solution.

A.2. The 100 Year Rule is inappropriate for biosequestration (forest, soils). It makes investing in forests highly risky in Australia's environment where wildfires will become more regular. Yet forests are in short supply, such is the demand for them.

A.3. The 100 Year Rule is a Kyoto Rule. The Kyoto rules apply to Kyoto Round One, which ends 2012. The Kyoto Protocols aren't the 10 Commandments. Round One was a learning stage. Mistakes were made. The Carbon Coalition believes - based on our analysis that soil can make a big contribution in the next 30 years while technology solutions come on line* - that vegetation and soil carbon should be covered by a 30 year rule.

Q. Will selling the soil carbon in my paddocks reduce my flexibility to farm in ways that meet my immediate needs?

A. We recommend that you don't commit you entire holding to a contract. Instead we advise that you select certain parts of your land for carbon trading. You don't have to commit to any one trading group. You could enter a CCX-like contract for a section and a full price/direct measurement for another. If you can't see yourself persisting with carbon farming techniques, you should not engage in long term contracted arrangements.

Q. Do you have to sign a contract that makes you liable to legal action if you fail to observe its conditions?

A. A soil carbon contract is like any other contract: you make a commitment to capture and store carbon. You can have provisions for make good on defaulting, insurance, etc. For instance, if you lost carbon due to an event such a a bushfire or a drought, you could be required to replace it (start again). Or your insurance that is built into the aggregator arrangement could cover it. At the end of the day, if you don't like the conditions in a contract, don't sign it.


*Soils can start sequestering carbon immediately on a vast scale - 65% of the land surface of the earth is controlled by farmers who could change their land management techniques overnight, given sufficient incentive. But soils reach an equilibrium point where they are saturated with carbon. This can take 20 or 30 years. This is the opportunity for soils because all other solutions need time to come on stream. Forests take 5 to 10 years to stop net emitting, and hit their stride in 20 to 50 years. (And, according to researchers at the University of Tasmania, it would take 7 planet Earths covered with forest to absorb the excess CO2 already in the atmosphere.) Clean Coal and Nuclear Power will take 15-20 years to reach critical mass. Solar power won't reach significant capacity for 20 years. The prospects for wind power are similar. Soils can hold the line while other solutions come on line. But only for up to 30 years. Hence the 30 Year Rule.

**The questions over the science of soil carbon are explained in A.1. The methodological problems with methane are indicated by the following: the reason given for excluding agriculture from the carbon market is the difficulty of measuring emissions from so many enterprises. So they have no individual scores for methane and nitrous oxide, yet they have an aggregate figure which they claim shows agriculture emits more than the transport industry. How can they have a macro figure with no micro figures? Estimates. What are the estimates based on? AGO documents reveal that the estimated methane emissions of cattle grazing on open pasture are based on a study of British cattle in 1965, augmented with various smaller local studies. The team working on N2O discovered their estimates were wildly out because they were based on Northern Hemisphere studies.