Soil Carbon: Burke still measuring

Agriculture Minister Tony Burke admitted in Parliament this week that he is still trapped in the old soil carbon measurement paradigm: ‘There is a general public policy principle that, if you are going to count something, you want to be able to count it accurately.”

Speaking to a Matter of Public Importance called by Member for New England Tony Windsor, Minister Burke said: “In any trading scheme, if you are going to be able to trade you need to be able to account and measure. The fact that the science of what is going on has not caught up with the measurement of the extent to which it is going on certainly does not preclude the government from investing seriously in trying to get the measurement issues up to speed as quickly as we possibly can.”

The Coalition told the Minister this investment will be wasted if the work it funds merely repeats the mistakes of the past: “If the names that appear on these new reports appeared on the old ones, then soil carbon trading is doomed,” we said. “It’s about a paradigm.”

He didn’t hear us, so soil carbon remains trapped in the vortex of exactitude, which is caused by the mistaken belief that greater accuracy in registering exact amounts is needed for trading to take place. The Minister was told by the Coalition and others that measurement for the purposes of trading is not the same thing. One senior Australia soil scientists made this remark: It is not true to say that the variability of soil carbon is so high that no reliable estimate of carbon density can be given for a paddock in terms of tonnes per hectare and to give an appropriate trading value”*

Notice two things: 1. The scientist did not want to be quoted. (Scientific opinion is dictated by the Peer Review System.*) 2. The word ‘estimate’ was used. In every other area of measurement in greenhouse gas emissions and sequestration, estimates are used. The amounts sequestered in trees is estimated. Emissions from energy plants are estimated. But not soil carbon.

Another person who declined to put their name to their words was one of Minister Wong’s most senior officials who said at a conference earlier this year: “Almost all measurement of emissions across both international greenhouse gas inventories reported to the international community and in emissions trading schemes around the world use estimates rather than direct measurement… Even when you have direct measurement, you take a sampling approach then you extrapolate up to the total amount of emissions. It’s the practical thing to do.”

At least the debate has risen above the outright denial of soil carbon: “We know carbon is being sequestered in the soil, that this is best practice,” said the Minister.

*See post below