Forests killing rural communities

The Financial Review
Tree schemes stir deep-rooted ire
Author: Narelle Hooper with Fiona Buffini
Date: 12/08/2006
Words: 1957
Source: AFR
Publication: The Financial Review
Section: Perspective
Page: 22
Tax incentives that favour plantations over other land uses are distorting the value of land and resources.

Robert Gerard just loves timber. The controversial Adelaide businessman, Liberal Party donor and former Reserve Bank of Australia board member describes his 2000 hectares of pine at Rosewood near Tumbarumba in southern NSW as a nest egg. He says the forestry has been good for the farmers and fantastic for the region and in coming years the carbon credits to be had from trees would be a goldmine for Australia.

"Not many people set out with a 30 year business planting 100 hectares a year," he told The Weekend Australian Financial Review in July. "I did that. I believe in timber, but I'm a bit of a queer bloke. I believe timber is a good investment."

But Gerard has a lot less timber to love than he used to have. And around Tumbarumba in the foothills of the Snowy Mountains, the locals don't like Gerard very much at all.

To farmers in the Lower Bago Valley, Gerard is the neighbour they never see but for occasional sightings of his helicopter, who sold them out to the enemy - pine plantation operator Willmott Forests Ltd.

The deal, finalised with Willmott just days after Gerard's resignation on December 2 from the Reserve Bank board over a multimillion-dollar tax scandal, halved Gerard's land holding. On December 16 last year, he booked a tidy $6.7 million selling two prime cattle properties of 1610 hectares to Willmott to convert into pine plantations for its Managed Investment Scheme.

The anger about the Gerard sale encapsulates the growing conflict between established rural landholders and the new breed of absentee tax-driven owners.

The friction is becoming an increasing issue for the federal government review of the tax treatment of MIS timber plantations and agribusiness schemes being conducted by assistant treasurer Peter Dutton.

Plantations have long been established in this part of NSW. It is their rapid spread that has been the main cause of the recent friction. MIS offers attractive tax deferrals for investors. The rapid expansion of the tree schemes has sparked growing opposition in rural communities and concern in investment markets about the long-term viability of the sector.

"It was a bolt out of the blue," says the deputy mayor of Tumbarumba Shire Council and a Rosewood neighbour, Graham Smith, of the Gerard sale.

Lower Bago angus cattle and merino sheep farmer Jeff Grady, who is affected by the change in land use, says he and his neighbours were devastated. MIS operators such as Willmott and Gunns Ltd in the nearby Maragle Valley had started to get a toehold in the area and the Gerard sale gave the plantation company a huge foothold in a prime agricultural valley.

"They've wrecked this valley," Grady says. "We were shocked for weeks because it changes your whole future. He has basically destroyed this valley and the community for his own personal gain.

"It's only tax breaks that are driving it and it's too high-value a country to be used for generating tax breaks for those blokes."

Gerard's employees were surprised too. Just weeks earlier they'd cut and stored masses of silage on the property for winter feed and hired a contractor to fix up the fences. Local stock and station agents also had to scramble to find buyers for 2000 cattle as the breeding herd Gerard had been building up was dispatched for about $1.5 million.

There has been plenty of speculation as to what prompted the sale. Gerard had spent five years buying up the best cattle properties in the area. He'd weathered a lengthy battle with neighbours and the council against his plans to expand his private pine plantations.The betting among locals is that Gerard needed cash following his $75 million settlement with the Australian Taxation Office in late 2003 and welcomed an attractive deal with Willmott after his exposure in the media over his tax affairs.

Despite Gerard's professed love for his trees, Willmott didn't think the 100 hectares of eight-year-old pine trees on the Gerard properties were such a great investment, and judged them fit for liquidation. In February, Willmott brought in the bulldozers, windrowed the trees and burnt the lot. They quickly made way for rows and rows of pines that were owned by a new crop of Willmott's tax-driven investors.

Willmott chief executive Marcus Derham, who claims he wasn't close to the arrangement, says: "He may have had some young trees that we may have come and knocked a few over. It depends how mature they are and if there's less than optimal spacing."

Derham confirms that Gerard has also been an investor in Willmott MIS plantations. But despite local talk that Gerard is a big Willmott shareholder, neither he nor his private companies appear on Willmott's register of shareholders.

When contacted, Gerard's office said he was away from his office and unable to respond to requests from The Weekend AFR for further information. In July he said he was a big supporter of Willmott. In his submission to the government, Gerard sided with the MIS operators and urged the federal government to maintain special tax treatment for timber plantations.

Derham describes Gerard as a big supporter of agroforestry who likes what Willmott does and a pretty-boots-and-all kind of guy.

"Rob's been a great absentee member of the Tumbarumba community," Derham says.

"He has been involved. It's a pretty tight-knit community. He's had cattle and sheep and trees and he understands how they can co-exist."

But to the locals, the Willmott deal embodies everything they see as wrong with the fast-expanding managed-investment scheme sector, which raised more than $1.14 billion from investors last year. For starters they can't see the economic logic in how there can be more money in planting new trees than in allowing existing ones to grow and mature.

Neighbouring farmers say they're doomed now to be surrounded by pine trees and fear the loss of productive farms and families from the community.

Jeff Grady says: "He's quoting employment opportunities but it's not happening.

"They neglect to deduct the jobs they've robbed from the community by pushing out the farmers and the business the farmers put through the towns during the year."

Grady says there are also serious concerns about the impact on environmental water flows. Tree plantations are thirsty. "It's good country for pine trees but it's also very good country for agriculture and by planting this high-rainfall land to pine, you are affecting your water yield further down the river."

A 1989 NSW Forestry Commission paper warned about the impact of extensive pine plantations in reducing environmental water flows. A number of other recent studies have raised similar issues.

Deputy mayor Smith expresses concerns at the loss of farmers, who are the major ratepayers in the area, while the council faces an escalating bill for road infrastructure for the timber industry.

"We walk a knife edge where your major ratepayers are your farmers and the timber on the other."

Of the impact on water flows, he says: "They deep rip on the contour and plant the trees, and that stops the run-off into streams. They'll tell you it doesn't, but it does. You can see the difference . . . there are creeks here are bone dry . . . we're worried because we are the catchment area for the Murray."

Merv Whittaker, whose 100 hectare block is caught in the middle of the land now owned by Willmott, chooses his words carefully. "There's a lot of worry and anxiety amongst the townspeople. It's not only this valley. The same thing is occurring in a dramatically short time in two other valleys nearby."

Gerard says he planted his first trees in 1983. By the late 1990s, he had expanded substantially in the valley by buying a number of prime cattle properties. His plans to expand the timber plantations brought increasing opposition from farmers and the council.

Graham Smith says Gerard has been low-key. "He's been a good employer of people in the Rosewood area. It was only this sale to Willmott that upset a few people in the valley."

Gerard argues in his submission that the expansion of timber scheme operators in the area has improved land values and provides employment. Jeff Grady retorts that it has been good only for a handful of farmers. Other farmers, he says, want to remain on the land but face a dramatically different environment.

Others say the local council has been bluffed by the timber lobby because the industry doesn't generate the huge employment they claim.

Tumbarumba Shire Council mayor George Martin says the expansion of the plantation sector in the area is proving difficult for council and the community. "There is a lot of emotion concerned. It's a difficult issue." He says when the plantation companies move into a valley they typically make an attractive "flagship" offer above the going rate. Early last year Gunns Ltd paid $2.5 million for 684 hectares in a neighbouring valley.

"The first one to sell gets the money and the last one gets very little," Martin says.

"We know we have major users who need the timber to be expanded. We also have grazing interests around who contribute to the local economy and we need them to be around. And we have a significant tourism industry and there are problems with wall-to-wall pine plantations blocking out the vistas."

The council has convened a working committee of grazing and pine representatives to try to resolve issues. But as plantation approvals have been in NSW government hands since 1999, Martin concedes this is basically a public relations exercise. "They don't have to bother with us at all, it's basically public relations."

In a phone call to The Weekend AFR in July in support of his submission to the federal government, Gerard said: "The big thing we haven't talked about is tax credits for carbon. When that becomes a [reality] they'll be worth a fortune. Once we can do carbon trading, my forests will give me enormous income. I might leave them there. You could make more out of credits than timber. Australia could make a goldmine out of credits."

Willmott's Derham says he's had discussions with Gerard about the possibilities for future credits. "It's something our business is looking at. We haven't done a carbon trade but we are certainly waiting for the right opportunity to do that."

Scheme operators have up to 12 months after raising the capital to find land and plant the trees for their investors, who gain attractive initial tax deductions.

The federal government has been consulting on proposed changes to the tax treatment of the schemes. The proposals include a cap of $6500 a hectare in first-year tax deductions, and extending the planting period to 18 months.

MIS opponents say this cap is still many times greater than the true cost of establishing plantations - and the real problem is that the tax incentives are all initial and there's no scrutiny of investment yields.

"Much of this vigour in the pine industry is caused by the 12-month rule, which seems to be working extremely well with lots of activity happening in my region," Gerard says in his submission.

"Personally, I cannot see why you need to change something that is working well."

Two big questions need answers

Coalition Member Bob WILSON sent the following message to our Members' Forum (www.carboncoalition@yahoogroups.com)

G'day all,
Haven't seen much action lately, so I thought I might get the ball rolling again. I was talking about Carbon Credits with a friend from the East (NSW) recently, who posed a couple of couple of points about the issue.

1. If we have a system of Carbon Credits introduced, then we will also have Carbon "Debits" as well. His comment was that as a cattle producer I would be up for much more Debit Tax than I would be receiving in Credits!!! Any thoughts?

2. He told me that the Long term Fertilizer Trial at Hamilton (vic) has not shown any major increase in soil C over 30 years. Those involved think that after 40 years it may be measurable. (we ran out of time, so I didn't get to quiz him on the pasture type in that trial, so they may be annuals) Does anyone know?

They are always a bit of a worry , these wise men from the east.......?

Bob

....................

We responded to Bob's questions:

Hi Bob,

Thanks for posting. I should post more often.

Answering your questions:

1. Carbon Debit Taxes: This has become clear to us just recently. We believe that there is no "If" about manditory limits to greenhouse emissions. It is "When". Australia won't be able to withstand the pressure once the US introduces limits on emissions. Record temperatures in the US this week have put global warming on top of that nation's list of crises. Eventually every business will be given an allocation of tonnes of Carbon it can emit, and if it needs to emit more, it will have to provide "offsets" by sequestering cabon itself (in soil or forests, etc.) or purchase credits from other companies that have sequestered carbon. Agriculture contributes 19% of all greenhouse emissions (compared to transport's 14%). How is it emitted? Ploughing, burning stubble, baring soil by over grazing, applying nitrogenous fertilisers, clearing native vegetation. How is it sequestered? Maintaining groundcover by time controlled grazing, minimum/no tillage, pasture cropping, encouraging grassy woodland, applying natural fertilisers, Natural Sequence Farming (leaky weirs, etc.) So farmers who do not earn carbon credits will have no other means of offsetting their carbon debits than putting their hands in their pockets. As for the assertion that you'll pay more than you'll get, how can anyone know that? Cattle emit methane from manure... We reported on US dairy farmers who are actually earning credits for using manure digesters. Bob, there are so many opportunities opening up with this issue, anyone who sprouts long term predictions is in need of a digester.

2. I don't know the facts of the Hamilton fertliser trial, but I can say this with confidence: Traditional nitrogenous fertiliser does not contribute to carbon. In fact it can deplete it. A 40-year trial can only be using traditional soil management techniques. These are carbon depleting. Under the regime being studied, many Australian soils have lost more that half their organic matter in 15 to 20 years. Soil carbon levels cannot be 'grown' using conventional farming techniques.
Conservation farming techniques are required.

You're right - the carbon credit caper is not all one-way traffic as we may have thought when we first came across it. But the benefits of carbon farming are many. But don't forget, everyone has the right to farm their soil anywhichway they want to. It is important that everyone knows the implications of all the choices available. For mine, I'd rather stay ahead of the game than have some government busybody telling me what to do.

Thanks for the questions. I'd welcome your feedback and I'll post this exchange on the blogsite for all to see.


Cheers!
Michael

Carbon Farming catching on

Victoria's DPI is promoting Carbon Farming, according to a report by Nick O'Halloran, Primary Industries Research Victoria (Tatura): "Farmers, agronomists and researchers from southern New South Wales and northern Victoria have gathered at Echuca to discuss the importance of organic matter for maintaining soil health. In the midst of international concern about the degradation of carbon levels in agricultural soils, the workshop was held as part of a DPI and Grains Research Development Corporation soil health project investigating the effect of different farming systems on soil carbon, microbial activity, soil structure and yield. More organic matter in soils leads to high carbon levels, which in turn improves soil health and increases nutrient availability, among other benefits. The project was initiated in response to growers' concerns about the sustainability of continuous cropping systems as a result of a decline in soil structure. It has revealed clear evidence that farmers can increase soil carbon by using a wide range of farm management systems. Participating farmers were generally confident about the benefits of increasing soil organic matter, but still seek information on specific management options and a stronger link between improved soil health and easier management or profit. The project will continue over the next 12 months. For more information contact Peter Fisher on 5833 5341 or email peter.fisher@dpi.vic.gov.au."

California and Britain bust the Kyoto trade barrier

"THE Governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, have struck an agreement to bypass the Bush Administration and work together to fight global warming," reports the Sydney Morning Herald.
California and Britain will create a market for the trading of carbon emissions, effectively punching a hole in the trade barriers between kyoto and non-Kyoto signatory countries. This move could opens the doors for Australians with carbon sinks to trade them in the high price Kyoto marketplace. The deal also includes sharing economic and scientific research on climate change and non-polluting technology.
"The evidence of climate change and its danger is overwhelming," Mr Blair said. "It is very hard for anyone to dispute it."
Gov. Schwarzenegger is running for his second term as governor. Despite being a staunch Republican, he attacked President Bush's refusal to recognise the problem: "We saw that there isn't leadership from the Federal Government when it comes to protection of the environment."

Present to support the deal were high profile corporate leaders, including James Murdoch, son of Rupert Murdoch; Anthony Pratt, chairman of the Melbourne company Pratt Industries USA; the co-founder of Google, Sergey Brin; and Virgin's Richard Branson. Sir Richard said: "I think businesses can influence leaders who are not worrying enough about our grandchildren.... I'm afraid that Bush and [John] Howard, when it comes to global warming, stand out somewhat. Even China is actually doing better than those two leaders."
Britain is fourth and California is fifth among the world's economies.
Google's Mr Brin said the presence of political and business leaders answered the claim by countries such as Australia and the US that the treaty would put them at an economic disadvantage. "Any signals, milestones, acknowledgement about this issue, particularly the acknowledgement that we can improve the environment and the economy at the same time, is a very strong message," he said.

Climate Change is Bull----, says Murdoch Press

Debate on climate change far from over
The UN panel from which governments get their information is deeply flawed, writes Economics editor Alan Wood
19jul06

AT lunchtime on Monday, John Howard and Victoria's Steve Bracks were on their feet talking about energy, climate change and the environment. While their approaches were notably different, there is one thing on which they both agree: the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is the font of all scientific wisdom on global warming.

In fact it has become quite fashionable of late to assert the global warming debate is over and an overwhelming scientific consensus prevails. This is simply untrue.

As acknowledged in an Australian Bureau of Agriculture and Resource Economics report on climate change scenarios, also released on Monday, there are still considerable scientific uncertainties surrounding the nature and extent of future climate change.

A report released in the US on Friday has torn apart one of the main props used by the IPCC to illustrate the need for urgent action on climate change. The report raises serious questions about the IPCC process and the findings on which world governments rely in forming their climate change policies. First, some background.

In telling the global warming story the IPCC, since 2001, has relied very, very heavily on what has become known as the "hockey stick". It is based on a 1999 paper, the principal author of which was paleoclimatologist Michael Mann.

Before the publication of his paper the generally accepted view of the past 1000 years was that there was a period of elevated temperatures known as the Medieval Warm Period, which was followed by the Little Ice Age, and then a new period of global warming.

Mann's hockey stick eliminated the Medieval Warm Period, flattening the fluctuations in global temperatures over most of the past millennium (the handle of the hockey stick) until we get to the 20th century, where the rate of global warming takes off in a sharp upward surge (the blade of the hockey stick).

This is the basis for the IPCC claim, now widely accepted, that the 20th century was the warmest in the past 1000 years, the 1990s were the warmest decade in the past millennium, and 1998 was the warmest year in the past 1000 years. Scary stuff!

Two Canadians, Steve McIntyre, an engineer, and Ross McKitrick, an economist, challenged Mann's work in 2003. They argued his technique produced hockey sticks from just about any set of data. Mann responded in a notably less than scientific manner by withholding adverse statistical results and important data, and discouraging the publication of criticism of his work.

A Wall Street Journal report of the controversy last year attracted the attention of the US House Committee on Energy and Commerce. It wrote to Mann and his co-authors, as well as to the IPCC, demanding relevant information and then approached independent US statisticians for advice on assessing the data provided.

Leading US statistician Edward Wegman, of George Mason University, who is chairman of the US National Academy of Sciences' committee on applied and theoretical statistics, agreed to assemble a group of statisticians to assess the Mann data. Their report was released last Friday and supported McKitrick and McIntyre's criticisms of the hockey stick, finding Mann's statistical work flawed and unable to support the claims of the hottest century, decade and year of the past millennium.

Yet the IPCC used the hockey stick in its publications, media releases, press conferences - where senior IPCC figures sat with the chart as a backdrop - and, for a time, incorporated it into the IPCC's logo.

It is important to understand that this is a debate about the use of statistics. Mann did no original scientific work, using available data and manipulating it in a new way.

However, it destroys the idea of an alarming escalation in global temperatures and, as the Wall Street Journal remarked on Friday, brings the present temperature rise within the range of natural historical variation.

There remains plenty of room for argument about the projections of future temperature rises and their implications, based on what are still primitive climate change models. But there is no escaping the damage done to the IPCC's reputation. It has relied heavily on a badly flawed piece of work, produced by what Wegman discovered was a small, insular group of paleoclimatologists who incestuously peer review, reinforce and defend each others' work.

Significantly, former commonwealth statistician Ian Castles and his colleague David Henderson, former head of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's economics department, have also exposed statistical and analytical flaws in the economic scenarios underlying the IPCC's climate change projections. As with McIntyre and McKitrick's criticism of the hockey stick, the IPCC establishment initially tried to ignore, then discredit, their work.

However, last year a House of Lords committee looking at the economics of climate change praised their work and said that without them the debate on emissions scenarios would not have taken place.

The Lords committee also expressed concerns that the IPCC was an increasingly politicised body that tried to suppress dissent. It warned of a risk it was becoming a knowledge monopoly, "in some respects unwilling to listen to those who do not pursue the consensus line".

In an article last week in Canadian newspaper the National Post, McIntyre and McKitrick say the IPCC's lead author, who selected Mann's hockey stick for prominent display, was none other than Mann himself. They quote eminent US climate science academic Kurt Cuffey as saying the IPCC's use of the hockey stick sent "a very misleading message".

They ask a pertinent question.

If the IPCC process isn't fixed, and there is no evidence the IPCC intends to do anything about it, how do we know it won't send out another very misleading message in its upcoming Fourth Assessment report?

privacy terms © The Australian

Government just doesn't get it, says Fairfax press

Australia's Fairfax press empire is throwing its weight behind a sane approach to global warming. Two recent articles sound the call to arms. In The Age, Tim Colebatch wrote on July 18, 2006: "If the science is right (and each year seems to confirm it), then we and the world are facing changes that will reduce our ability to grow food, and could threaten the livelihoods of hundreds of millions of people worldwide.

"The Prime Minister's disappointing speech yesterday was more evidence that at the top of this Government they just don't get it. New technology is not an alternative to carbon taxes and emission trading schemes, it is their outcome. And the massive scale of the problem is not a reason to do less, but to do more.

"You can pour money into research and development of clean technologies and hope for breakthroughs. But let's be pragmatic. Unless the new clean technologies cost less than the old polluting ones, business will not take them up. That's why you need a tax or regulatory system that creates a financial incentive to do so. Then markets will work, and clean technologies will take over."

The next day, the Sydney Morning Herald's planning writer Elizabeth Farrelly wrote, "This is the mystery. Polls show we worry about climate change, but we vote from the hip pocket. John Howard, the polls tell us, makes us feel safe. But we blind ourselves to the yawning chasm between feeling safe and being safe."

Climate change has become a moral issue, she says. Maybe the moral issue. "In Australia, where governments quail before moral issues, the vacuum is filling with an unlikely alliance of business and philanthropic lobby groups. The Australian Business Roundtable on Climate Change argued in April that a 60 per cent cut in Australia's emissions is compatible with strong economic growth. Westpac's chief executive officer, David Morgan, known for lampooning emissions proposals as Mein Kampf and seeing carbon trading as a European conspiracy, notes that 'the next president of the United States … [is expected] to initiate urgent action on climate change'.
"In the US, where the writer Elizabeth Kolbert argues the need for an "environmental Churchill", an obstructionist Bush White House is nevertheless ringed by cities, states, Congress and the courts, plus a few inner-Republican colleagues, determined to make change. Last year, California's Governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, launched a plan to cut state emissions by 80 per cent by 2050. "The debate is over," he said. "The science is in. The time to act is now." Right-wing evangelical leaders of 30 million people marched on Capitol Hill, urging leadership on climate change. Since then, 238 US mayors have pledged to "meet or beat" Kyoto; the House of Representatives Appropriations Committee has supported emissions caps and the Supreme Court has agreed to decide whether CO 2 regulation should be mandatory."

"THE SCIENCE IS REAL": US GOVERNMENT SCIENTISTS

U.S. government scientists testified before a congressional committee July 20, trying to dispel any doubts that climate change and the human role in it is real, documented by abundant scientific research.

House Government Reform Committee Chairman Tom Davis, a Republican from Virginia, urged the issue be discussed in a nonpartisan way. “For too long, the political dialogue on climate change has been dominated by black-and-white grandstanding, either finger-wagging or head-in-the-sand denial and denunciation,” he said. “There has been no reasonable discourse.”

Committee members wanted to know if climate change was real and what is the impact of human activity.

The director of the National Climatic Data Center of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Thomas Karl, said: “Some greenhouse gases are increasing in the atmosphere because of human activities and increasingly trapping more heat.”

Scientists use climate models to project what the different outcomes might result from fluctuations of the many variables in the climate system. Climate models are computer programs that use mathematical equations to simulate the interactions of the atmosphere, oceans, land surface and ice. “Climate models have become the primary means to predict climate,” said Karl.

Scientists have to use some approximations in their data about climate conditions in constructing the models. Critics of climate-change science argue those models are inaccurate and provide insufficient basis upon which to make major changes in the use of fossil fuels, which create the greenhouse gases believed to contribute to global warming.
Mr Karl stood by the models. “They’re reliable enough to be a very useful guide into the future,” he said.

Big corporates call for carbon credits for Aussies

A group of leading companies, including Visy Industries, BP Australia, Insurance Australia Group, Origin Energy, Swiss Re and Westpac called on the Commonwealth Government to set up a national carbon trading scheme.
The six-company Australian Business Roundtable on Climate Change is a part of the Committee for Economic Development of Australia (CEDA). Business could not act effectively on climate change without a government-sponsored carbon trading policy, said Visy Industries chief executive Harry Debney, addressing a CEDA luncheon on 20 July, 2006. "We need more policy certainty to achieve the long-term investments needed to really change the game," he said. "We will never really achieve the optimum policy in water as we won't with energy unless we have the right economic signals. A carbon trading signal of some form has to be developed."
BP Australia environmental affairs adviser Fiona Wild said that by not taking action on climate change today "we are not only making the task a lot harder, we are also making it more expensive".
The federal government has ruled out a national carbon trading scheme.

Soil sequestration hero wins highest award

A world leader in the race to find the methodology for accurately measuring soil carbon for sequestration has been awarded the highest honour a soil scientist can achieve. Ohio State University soil scientist Rattan Lal was given the prestigious Liebig Applied Soil Science Award at the World Congress of Soil Science conference. Professor Lal is director of Ohio State's Carbon Management and Sequestration Center and a professor with the School of Environment and Natural Resources.
Prof. Lal has spent 18 years studying carbon sequestration -- the technique of storing carbon in the soil -- and its influence on soils throughout the world. Other areas of research include soil processes and atmospheric greenhouse effects, sustainable management of soil and water resources, restoration and rehabilitation of degraded soils, agro-forestry, tropical agriculture and agricultural development in the Third World.
The 18th World Congress of Soil Science, held in Philadelphia, Pa. July 9-15, 2006, was organized by the International Union of Soil Science and the Soil Science Society of America. More than 2,500 soil scientists from 70 countries attended. Prof. Lal delivered a paper at the conference: "Are Recalcitrant Biomacromolecules Potential Sinks in the Global Carbon Cycle?" Sounds cool. For the soil scientists who understand this stuff, here's some of the abstract of the paper he co-authored with Dr Klaus Lorenz:

"The major reservoirs of carbon on Earth are the oceans (38,400 Gt), the lithosphere (75,000,000 Gt) and the terrestrial biosphere (2,500 Gt). The atmospheric CO2 exchanges rapidly with the C pool in the oceans and the terrestrial biosphere. Fossil fuel burning, however, unlocks C from the lithospheric pool (i.e., kerogen, coal, petroleum) while land-use changes may release C from the soil organic C (SOC) pool. The resulting increase in atmospheric CO2 by human activities contributes to the climate change. Until CO2-neutral technologies for energy production are available, managing the SOC pool is an opportunity to slow the rate of increase of atmospheric CO2. The proportion of the stable SOC increases with increase in soil depth due to physical stabilization and changes in microbial processes but also due to increase in inputs of recalcitrant plant-derived biomacromolecules and their selective preservation. By comparing the occurrence of biomacromolecules preserved in fossil fuels and fossil plant remains for thousands to millions of years (i.e., terrestrial biomarkers) with those stored for thousands of years in sediments and in soil profiles in the stable SOC pool, plant biopolymers with a high residence time can be identified. The n-alkyl compounds are found in recent and ancient sediments, vascular plant leaf extracts, fossil plant tissues and petroleum. However, only the very high range of the n-alkane odd-over-even predominance in the number of C atoms is a potential chemotaxonomic tool for inputs from higher plants. A variety of pentacyclic triterpenoids are used as general tracers of higher plant input (e.g., in crude oils, marine sediments). Steroids are common in higher plants and attributed to higher plant inputs in petroleums and ancient sediments, but not in marine sediments. Cutin-derived compounds are used as chemotaxonomic tracers for higher plant inputs to younger marine sediments. Lignin commonly occurs in woody tissues and cell walls of vascular plants, but lignin-derived records for marine and lacrustine sediments can be biased by selective preservation. Furthermore, lignin is not as stable in soil as previously thought. Resin-derived compounds (i.e., sesquiterpenoids and diterpenoids) are commonly found in petroleum, and inputs by gymnosperms and conifers can be distinguished. Suberins/suberans and tannins may also contribute to the stable SOC pool. By selecting plant/cultivars with higher concentrations of biomacromolecules showing a high preservation potential, the residence time of C in the soil can thus be directly managed. The scientific knowledge, however, about biomacromolecules contributing to the stable C pool in biosphere and lithosphere is scanty. With the development and application of new techniques for the elucidation of structural features of organic compounds in the earth's crust, the potential of biomacromolecules as C sinks in the global C cycle and their role in mitigating climate change can be evaluated."

Inspiration when it's needed.

How can we hope to win if the most popular Prime Minister in history declared carbon credits are a dead letter?
What can we do against the might of the most powerful nation on the planet who's President is a fossil fuel fanatic?

'NEVER DOUBT THAT A SMALL GROUP OF THOUGHTFUL, COMMITTED CITIZENS CAN CHANGE THE WORLD; INDEED, IT'S THE ONLY THING THAT EVER HAS.' Margaret Mead

Prime Minister "discourages" farmers on carbon

Australia could become an 'energy superpower', selling coal and oil to an energy hungry world. Renewable energy is too expensive, so nuclear is likely to become mainstream in Australia. And carbon credits are not on the horizon for anyone in Australia. This is the conclusion from Mr Howard's speech to the Council for the Economic Development of Australia on 17 July, 2006.*
"Clean coal" and nuclear are the future, he says, both playing to Australia's strengths. And Kyoto is not for signing, he says, because companies would leave Australia if it signed.
"This is a very discouraging message from our national leader," says Michael Kiely, Convenor of the Carbon Coalition.
"Surely Mr Howard has been badly advised by public servants. ABC 4Corners revealed how the coal industry had been given unusual free access to influence energy policy, even to the extent of writing the Department's Cabinet submissions," he says.
The Prime Minister's speech writers have made some glaring errors, says Mr Kiely. "Fancy having the Prime Minister make a statement such as that companies would leave Australia if we signed Kyoto. Where could they go? The rest of the world has signed, except the USA, and most observers believe it will sign when the new Administration is sworn in. Big companies here like Westpac, IAG and Origin Energy are asking for Kyoto."
The Carbon Coalition will be lobbying the Prime Minister to ask him to consider the opportunity for Australian farmers and the natural resource base if soil carbon credits can be traded. It will also be lobbying the Kyoto signatories to ask them to allow Australian farmers to trade on the European Climate Exchange.

*Posted at http://howardoncredits.blogspot.com

Government policy against soil C credits

A research paper called "National and International Policies Affecting the Demand for Soil Carbon Sequestration" reveals how US Government Policy stands in the way of Soil C Credits. The paper by Linda Young, Senior Research Scientist in the Department of Agricultural Economics and Economics, Montana State University, gives an overview of the various climate change policies currently in place or being discussed around the world. It discusses how these various policies affect the market for carbon trading and the demand for soil carbon sequestration.

She concludes: "U.S. markets for agricultural carbon sequestration services will likely be small unless there is a change in U.S. federal climate-change policy. The Bush administration's climate-change policy establishes emissions reductions at roughly the same pace that they have occurred over the past twenty years due to technological advances. Current U.S. policy is likely to keep demand for carbon credits weak in the United States and given that the United States cannot export carbon credits to entities in countries that have ratified the Kyoto Protocol, international demand for U.S. carbon credits will remain weak as well. As a result, there is little impetus to overcome the verification and measurement challenges the market would require for agricultural sequestration services. State programs are strengthening demand for carbon credits, but at the cost of complying with a myriad of requirements for business that vary by state.

"The development of the carbon market would be facilitated by the emergence of a seamless market with one set of rules for those demanding and supplying carbon credits. Market demand for agricultural sequestration services is likely to remain weak."

Australia's federal government policy follows US policy in lockstep.

See the full paper, with references, at: http://www.oznet.ksu.edu/ctec/CASMGSnewsletter/Dec03-2.htm

British companies demand tougher emission targets

Fourteen British companies are demanding that the UK Government push for tougher emissions limits in the second round of the Kyoto process, the second phase of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS).
The group, known as the Corporate Leaders Group on Climate Change, includes oil company Shell, consumer goods company Unilever and teleco Vodafone.
They believe that tougher targets will drive investment, putting the UK ahead in low-carbon technologies such as hydrogen storage, wave and tidal power, and carbon finance. "We need EU governments to set clear targets for the ETS out to 2025 so that our businesses and others can have the confidence to make long-term investments in reducing emissions," said Shell's chairman James Smith. Green groups welcomed the call. "This is exactly what is needed if we are to tackle climate change and ensure that the British economy reaps the rewards of going green," said Friends of the Earth director Tony Juniper.

Are the Kyoto carbon trade walls coming down?

The first carbon credits trade deal to link North American and European greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions trading systems ttook place in May. Baxter Healthcare Corporation transferred allowances to emit 100 tonnes of carbon dioxide within the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) from one of its Irish operations into the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX). The company was a founding member of the CCX, a voluntary US market which requires its members to cut GHG emissions on an annual basis.
While EU allowances can be transferred to the CCX, the flow is not permitted in the other direction, as the US is not a signatory to the Kyoto Protocol on climate change.

Carbon market booming (too bad we're not in it)

The global carbon market could be worth US$25 to US$30 billion in 2006, based on the first four months of trading, according to the World Bank. CLose to $7.5 billion in carbon contracts were exchanged in 4 months, compared with close to $11 billion in 12 months of 2005. The volumes of carbon dioxide (CO2) allowances traded in 2005 grew 4000% compared to 2004. The number of contracts grew by 300% in the same period. "We have a working market that has grown faster than expected," said Andrei Marcu, president of the International Emissions Trading Association.

Carbon hits A$29!

Carbon is back in the stratosphere as prices approach the $30 mark again after months of volatility which saw prices fall below $10. Analysts point to the fact that the market is still only a year old and prices depend on Kyoto signatories reporting their mandatory limits. Inexperience has led to several over-estimations and changes in allocations, which causes wild market swings. At present, Australian carbon contracts cannot be negotiated with companies in Kyoto countries because we are non-signatories to the agreement. American carbon contracts are also restricted.
However the next round of negotiations is starting, with Australia co-chairing the sessions. With a change of leadership expected in both countries within the time frame in the lead up to 2012, the start of the new agreement, the trade in soil carbon credits comes closer. So start sequestering (locking up) carbon now. You'll be so pleased you did.

"May I ask who is blocking you/us and why?"

"May I ask who is blocking you/us and why?"

This question came through after the latest Coalition Update email included the following reference:

"The sooner we become a mass movement, the sooner those people blocking us will feel the call of destiny and either join us or at least wave us through."

NB. The Carbon Coalition has supporters of all sides of politics as members. The Coalition is not aligned with any political party or pressure group.
______________________________________________
Q. "May I ask who is blocking you/us and why?"
______________________________________________

A. Where do I start? At the top: It is my personal view that the President of the United States George W. Bush is discouraging us by refusing to sign the Kyoto protocols that the US negotiated up until the last minute, then bailed out, even though it was given massive concessions to join the 160+ other countries that signed. No Kyoto, no mandatory ‘cap and trade’ system, no market for carbon credits in the US.

Next comes the Commonwealth Government of Australia which followed America’s lead (the only other nation to refuse to ratify). The attitude of the Commonwealth Government is not encouraging. Ministers don't return the Coalition's calls; even a high profile parliamentary secretary that I worked with before he was drafted into parliament does not respond, despite him requesting a briefing when I ran into him months ago; Federal Government agencies are reluctant to help us. All the evidence points to the Carbon Coalition being shut out by the Commonwealth Government.

Third comes the Government’s Greenhouse agency, which officially dismisses soils as a potential sink. (There are many areas of agreement between the Coalition and the Greenhouse Office, which we will outline in a later post.)

Fourth the scientific establishment. Defending the old paradigm that Australian soils can’t sequester much carbon, a belief based on research studies which typically focus on land managed according to traditional farming methods, rather than carbon farming. Or when they do include rotational grazing, they use too few paddocks and too short a time

Finally money is blocking us by not being available in sufficient quantities to allow us to make faster ground.

Who is standing beside us?

The vast majority of the nations of the world – 160 of them.

Many corporations in Australia and America, including power companies, want stricter regulation. The world’s airlines recently went public, pleading with Mr Bush to introduce a mandatory cap and trade system. Westpac is leading a corporate ginger group lobbying the Federal Government for mandaotry reductions. British companies are lobbying their government for even tighter controls than Kyoto imposes. Intelligent companies understand that it’s bad for business to have extreme weather events.

US Congress - A bill to establish mandatory limits on emissions came before Congress narrowly missed being passed by a handful of votes – with prominent Republicans in favour. 70 Senators wrote an official letter to the President last month demanding that he show leadership in this area. (Most oil and coal companies lobby the President against these moves.)

The US Department of Agriculture and Department of Energy are vigorously searching for many solutions, including soil carbon sequestration. The measurement methodology is the focus of two scientific teams who are in the proof of concept and validation phases on research and expect to report in 2009.

The Chicago Climate Exchange – the world’s first carbon market, has offered Australian farmers the use of an international trading instrument for selling our carbon credits on the voluntary US market. (Last week the first cross-Kyoto border deal was done, which indicates the wall is coming down.)

US State Governments – 13 have introduced their own mandatory cap and trade systems.

Australian State Governments – all 7 states and territories have formed a greenhouse initiative and lobby Canberra for stricter controls.

Enlightened soil scientists – who ‘get’ carbon farming and can see the methodological problems with the 'legacy' research.

Farm lobby groups – we are getting great response from farmers’ associations.

Farmers and graziers – wherever we speak we enlist the vast majority of landholders.

Time – is on our side. President Bush’s Administration comes to a close within 18 months. Peter Costello is reported to have made positive remarks about carbon credits in a speech in San Francisco. John Howard hasn’t said ‘never, ever’. I personally believe that he hasn’t been fully briefed on the matter and that if he knew the facts he’d change his mind.

Remember, the pioneers are the ones with the arrows in their backs.

Farmers' Association NSW give us a hearing

NSW Farmers are right behind us - Jock Laurie gave us his support for the motion going before their conference this month. He is very enlightened about natural resource management. If it gets up we'll go to the NFF, MLA, AWI, etc and see if we can't line up solid support from industry bodies for something that is in their members' best interests. If they get behind it, we'll have the best agripoliticians on our side. CC Member and CMA Farming Systems classmate Mark Pickford pushed the motion through Wellington Branch and arranged a presentation to about 25 members last week, facilitated by Hamish Munro of Cumnock.








Deborah Willis, a dynamic personality (and don't we need more of them in agriculture?) got us in to see Jock within a week! She's one of the progressive people we met at the Gloucester Manning Landcare Pater Andrews seminar.

It is people like Mark, Hamish, Deborah and Jock who will make this vision become reality.

Christine Jones 'Managing the Carbon Cycle' Forum @ HORSHAM 26-27th July 2006

'Managing the Carbon Cycle'
HORSHAM 26-27th July 2006
http://www.amazingcarbon.com/


PAPER SUMMARIES


Ray O'Grady   Importance of Soil Carbon
This paper reviews the historic loss of 50-60% of soil carbon, and its effects on crop yields, the physical, chemical and biological aspects of soil health and the health and wellbeing of the farming family. Farming practices that influence these soil carbon losses and the methods and principles of increasing the carbon sink in the soil are discussed.
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Ray O'Grady and Rod Rush  The Terra Preta phenomenon
The greatest legacy the Amazonians left to the World was not the famed 'City of Gold' but the Terra Preta. These man-made 'Indian black earths' cover an area the size of France. They hold a secret to carbon sequestration that could reduce carbon dioxide emissions and global warming. We require only 10% of our productive, degraded lands to absorb the estimated 6.1 gigatons of carbon dioxide of emissions to make a carbon negative world possible in our life time. The question must be then asked 'Do we need nuclear power to reduce Global Warming?
……………………………………………………………………………….
Andre Leu  Organics and Soil Carbon:
Increasing soil carbon, crop productivity and farm profitability
This paper explains how atmospheric carbon is introduced into the soil and how it stored in stable forms. It identifies the farming techniques that are responsible for the decline in soil carbon and gives alternative practices that do not damage carbon. Increasing soil carbon can reduce the 25% of Australia's greenhouse gases created by agriculture and assist in ameliorating climate change. Increasing soil carbon will ensure good production outcomes and farm profitability. Soil carbon, particularly the stable forms such as humus and glomalin, increases farm profitability by increasing yields, soil fertility, soil moisture retention, aeration, nitrogen fixation, mineral availability, disease suppression, soil tilth and general structure. It is the basis of healthy soil.
……………………………………………………………………………….
Rod Rush Understanding mycorrhizal fungi
Mycorrhizal fungi form symbiotic associations with the  roots of many plant species. Mycorrhizae supply their hosts with mineral nutrients (notably phosphorus) in exchange for energy compounds. However, there are many land management practices that can severely deplete and sometimes extinguish mycorrhizal populations. This paper focuses on a discussion of these management practices and their consequences for ecosystem health and farm productivity.
……………………………………………………………………………….
Tony Scherer Back to Basics
Returning to a biologically based farming system
How we moved away from the importance of soil structure, humus and water holding capacity to an NPK mentality Should we treat agriculture as a biological or industrial system? Do consumers know what they are eating? Effect of government policy on alternative agriculture. Effect of agricultural research on alternative agriculture. How do we retrieve a sane and sensible farming system?
……………………………………………………………………………….
Andrew Helps  Climate change and dryland farming
Soil carbon levels - overview of the National and Regional inventories such that they are. Does the farming sector have any understanding of albedo-related feedback mechanisms and the impact of these mechanisms on farm scale - and on regional and national productivity? Is big still beautiful? Was it ever really beautiful? Is there a role for a small intensive dryland model?
……………………………………………………………………………
Michael and Louisa Kiely  Carbon Credits from Soil
The Carbon Coalition Against Global Warming was launched to promote carbon in agricultural soils as a natural carbon sink for the purpose of trading on the global emission credits market.  Global Warming presents farmers and graziers with an opportunity to sell carbon credits worth thousands of dollars per hectare. Soil carbon levels can be increased by replacing soil management practices such as stubble burning, ploughing and inappropriate grazing with minimum tillage, regenerative grazing and revegetation with perennial grasses. Baselining is essential for registration in possible future trading programs. Landholders need to take action now to be ready for the anticipated first day of trading.
……………………………………………………………………………
Bob Mackley  Sacred cows with zebra stripes
Agricultural practice and the shape of farming communities have changed enormously over the last four decades. There have been obvious benefits in gross production but whether we are accounting for the full cost is in considerable doubt. Whenever the environmental cost of farming is brought up in discussion there is usually a heavy silence and people trying to find the door marked EXIT. The enthusiastic adoption of herbicide, pesticide and fungicide products may be masking a greater danger to sustainable agriculture than the current generation of 'pests'. Resistance (selection pressure) has become the new fear phrase in farming circles with the common response being to apply more, stronger, earlier or differing mode of action chemical. This more-on farming method has caused many farmers to look elsewhere for answers and the soil may hold many of them.
……………………………………………………………………………
John and Val Hanley Organic grain and fodder production
We farm 2000 acres in Central Victoria. We grow BFA certified grains for milling and fodder (oats, oaten hay and pasture hay), as well as silage for organic dairy farmers. This presentation will cover our experiences within the organics industry; human health issues; weed control in broadacre farming, especially grass 'problems'; green manures; the use of aerators and rollers; crop rotations; livestock management; weevil control in silos. No matter what you are growing, you are a microbe farmer. Microbes are what make your living for you. For everything you do, always ask 'is this going to be beneficial for microbial life on my farm?'
……………………………………………………………………………
David Marsh A different decision-making process can produce profits, increase carbon sequestration in soils and regenerate landscapes
With different grazing management, there is huge potential for carbon sequestration in soil. The effect of higher soil carbon levels on landscape function and possible solutions to other land degradation issues are discussed. Drought performance of a farm where decisions are made using the Holistic Management model are examined.
…………………………………………………………………………
Colin Seis Carbon farming through Pasture Cropping
Concerns about declining profitability, poor soil structure, dryland salinity, soil acidification and increasing numbers of herbicide resistant weeds have prompted over 1000 farmers throughout eastern, southern and Western Australia to trial Pasture Cropping.  The year-round groundcover results in reduced wind and water erosion, improved tilth, reduced weed numbers, increased nutrient availability and increased levels of soil organic carbon. The soil health benefits from plant root exudates derived from a mix of shallow rooted crops and deep-rooted perennial pasture are numerous. In an era when dryland salinity, soil acidification and loss of soil carbon are having increasing impacts on the productivity and profitability of farming enterprises, Pasture Cropping may provide one option for addressing these issues.
……………………………………………………………………………
Liz Clay Positioning soil in the carbon market - a Victorian perspective
There is now a scientific and political consensus on the reality of climate change. It is happening and it has serious implications - for our ecosystems, our health, our economy and our future. This paper reviews the risks and opportunities associated with positioning soil carbon in the emissions trading market.
……………………………………………………………………………
Andrew Helps  Carbon, energy and water
Making the case for high carbon fertiliser
Can Australian farmers remain profitable under their current dry land model? Will selling grain for export continue to be the best use of farm production? Manufactured fertiliser is hooked to the price of oil and gas. It takes .65 of a tonne of natural gas to make a tonne of urea, a tonne of natural gas to make a tonne of ammonia and the equivalent of a tonne of gas and up to 20,000 litres of water to make a tonne of phosphorus. It is reasonable to expect that farm gate prices for diesel could well rise to the $1.50-$1.60 region after excise claw back in the next 18 months. At this level most farmers will want to explore alternative fuel options - what are these options?


REGISTRATION: Places for this information packed two day forum are limited. Registration deadline 14 July 2006. Visit http://www.amazingcarbon.com/
or contact UNE Conference Company (02) 6773 2154

An Open Letter To Soil Scientists About Carbon

Dear Soil Scientist,

Scientists have rarely had the opportunity to change the course of history that you have today. Global warming is now widely considered inevitable. The race is on to find ways to avert the worst case scenario.

While millions of trees are being planted and various solutions are being investigated, including pumping C02 into oceans, empty coal seams and oil wells, none has the capacity to sequester sufficient CO2 in the next 50 years. Only soils can do it. "Results from integrated assessment analyses indicate that soil carbon sequestration may have an important strategic role – due to potential for early deployment and low costs – within a technology portfolio to mitigate climate change," says US climate change economist Professor Bruce A. McCarl of Texas A&M University. "Unlike many other technologies to offset fossil fuel emissions (e.g. geologic carbon sequestration, carbon capture), land management for soil C sequestration can be implemented immediately, provided there are economic and other incentives to do so."

Soils can sequester large amounts of carbon*. "Soil organic carbon is the largest reservoir in interaction with the atmosphere," reports the United Nations Food & Agriculture Organisation. (Vegetation 650 gigatons, Atmosphere 750 gigatons, Soil 1500 gigatons). Poor management of the world's soils in the past 200 years has seen soil carbon levels severely depleted in many regions. Grazing land alone comprises more than half the total land surface of the world. Any incremental change in carbon levels through improved soil management on such a scale could have a massive impact on atmospheric CO2 stocks.

Soils used for C sequestration would reach their carbon saturation point within that 50-year window of opportunity. But they will have done the job until alternatives come on stream.

There are two more links in the chain between you and saving the world from the worst of Global Warming. Link #1 is the motivation to get conservative farmers to make radical changes to their farm practices. The income derived from selling carbon credits would be sufficient incentive to change for most farmers if prices were in the range currently being achieved under the Kyoto Agreement.

Link #2 is the mechanism which can make such trade possible - the measurement, monitoring and verification of amounts of carbon sequestered in soils. Here the spotlight falls upon you. The world needs a reliable, bankable methodology that will be acceptable to markets. Currently the ruling paradigm states that it can't be done: soil carbon levels are in such flux that they can swing wildly from one side of a field to another, from furrow to furrow, from day to day.

Consider this: Before Columbus, educated Europeans thought the earth was flat. Before Copernicus, educated Europeans thought the Sun revolved around the Earth. These old paradigms were fiercely defended by the establishment. There will come a day when soil carbon measurement will be a problem solved and the world will reap the benefits.

These benefits are not just greenhouse-related. The soil management techniques required for carbon sequestration - constant groundcover, deep-rooted perennials, minimum- or no-tillage cropping, and the like - will have the positive effect of restoring soil structure, rebuilding biomass and microfauna communities, increasing the soil's water-holding capacity, reducing the incidence of salination, and improving soil fertility and productivity. Add to these the protection of topsoil from wind and water erosion and you can see how powerful is your opportunity.
The carrot of carbon credits will motivate an entire generation of farmers to learn the benefits of husbanding the soil.

There are profound social benefits, as well. Increased farm incomes would help farm families stay together on the land. Increased farm values would give farm families financial flexibility and confidence in the future. Soil carbon credits would also foster new growth in farm communities, providing employment opportunities and protecting social infrastructure that is crumbling as you read this.

Given the benefits for the environment and society, the search for a methodology should be pursued with the same passion as the search for a cure for cancer. The scientist who discovers the solution will not only enter the history books. You will have made a real contribution to the lives of everyone on the planet, an opportunity few people are given.

Yours in hope for the future,

The Carbon Coalition Against Global Warming**


PS. Shakespeare said it all:

"There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries."

PPS. *Soil carbon sinks can play a key role in the global strategy to mitigate against greenhouse emissions, says Prof. Bruce A. McCarl. "With focused effort, the amount of carbon sequestered in soil by land management could be significantly increased. Various studies estimate that the soil C sequestration rate may be increased to 0.44-0.88 Pg C y-1 and sustained over a 50-year time frame."

**The Carbon Coalition Against Global Warming is a farmers' and citizens' movement which seeks to have agricultural soils recognised as an effective carbon sink for the purposes of trading on the global greenhouse emissions offset market. Visit www.carboncoalition.com.au for more details and to join.

Persistence

Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan "press on" has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.
[info][add][mail]
Calvin Coolidge (1872 - 1933)

There is a tide in the affairs of men...

There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.

AP6 locks world in to four degrees global warming

AP6 locks world in to four degrees global warming

12 Jan 2006

WWF, the global conservation organisation, has grave concerns following today's announcements at the AP6 meeting in Sydney that the Howard Government is willing to accept runaway climate change.

The Prime Minister's office today stated that the Asia Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate would lead to 20% less greenhouse gas emissions than would otherwise be the case by 2050, based on analysis by the Australian Bureau of Agriculture and Resource Economics (ABARE).

What is not being said is that the ABARE report (PDF 1.2 MB) shows global emissions will in fact increase by 100 per cent by 2050 under the Partnership plan, when climate scientists are calling for emissions to halve.

A 100 per cent increase in global greenhouse gas emissions, as allowed under the new Partnership plan, would lock the world into a four-degree rise in average global surface temperatures.

A four-degree rise in temperatures would wreak havoc on infrastructure and the natural environment.

In Australia this would result in the destruction of our natural icons, including World Heritage sites such as Kakadu, the Great Barrier Reef and the Daintree rainforest. Global warming of this magnitude would also place untenable pressure on the country's healthcare and emergency response systems as more people are affected by heat-related diseases, cyclones, bushfires and other freak weather patterns.

The Australian Medical Association yesterday said that by the year 2100 up to 15,000 Australians could die every year from heat related illnesses and the dengue transmission zone could reach as far south as Brisbane and Sydney if emissions continue to increase.

"In my whole business career, I have never seen a more misleading public statement as that made by Prime Minister John Howard today," said WWF-Australia CEO Greg Bourne.

"If the statements made today become a reality, this will lock us in to a four-degree rise in global average temperatures, when two-degrees is considered extremely dangerous," he said.

"There couldn't be anything more irresponsible than to knowingly embark on a path towards massive increases in emissions and runaway global warming."

The only way to avoid dangerous climate change is for the world to agree on a plan to reduce emissions. The Kyoto Protocol is the only global treaty to do this.

WWF urges the United States and Australia to join the 148 countries that are working on effective emissions reductions under the Kyoto Protocol.
For more information

Charlie Stevens, Press Officer, WWF-Australia
Phone: 02 8202 1274
Mobile: 0424 649 689
Email: cstevens@wwf.org.au
Notes

* Last month, a WWF report entitled Are we putting our fish in hot water? (PDF 1.03 MB) reveals that fish are increasingly threatened by the effects of climate change as temperatures rise in rivers, lakes and oceans. For a copy of the report and for the full scientific reports on climate change and freshwater and marine fish, see Hot, hungry and gasping for air - climate change puts fish at risk, warns WWF.
* Studies by WWF show at least 90 Australian species are at risk from climate change - including koalas, wombats, birds, reptiles, frogs and fish. According to the Australian Government's Department of Environment and Heritage most highland faunal species will disappear if average temperatures increase by 1-5°C.
* Science journal Nature has revealed that between 15 and 37 per cent of terrestrial species worldwide could become extinct by 2050 if estimated levels of climate change are not reduced.
* In the Arctic, an expected temperature increase of 2°C could result in the extinction of such iconic species as polar bears, seals and walruses.

For more information

Contact the WWF-Australia Press Office by email or phone on 1800 032 551, or 0410 220 608 after hours.
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Senate pleads with Bush: "Be a leader. Cap and Trade!"

CAPTION: The US Senate says President George W. Bush is not a visionary when it comes to his country's future in a carbon-conscious world.

.................

On 29 June, 40 US senators, including prominent Republican leaders, sent an urgent letter to President Bush. "Provide leadership on climate change," they said or the US could lose its competitive edge in a "carbon conscious" world. They want a mandatory cap and trade system whereby companies will have to buy carbon credits to offset the CO2 and other gases they are emitting into the atmosphere.

A year ago, the Senate passed a resolution calling for a mandatory federal programme to reverse global warming.
In other words, they wanted a cap and trade system. Nothing happened, so they are pleading with him again. Bush is a global warming skeptic. He has only recently agreed it is real. He doesn't accept its man made. (He career in the oil industry, one of the biggest polluters that would be forced to buy offsetting credits, has been offered as an explanation for his reluctance.) The Bush Administration's own scientists have proven climate change is linked to human influences.

The 40 Senators make an appeal on economic grounds: "It is important to keep US businesses competitive in a carbon-conscious global marketplace. Since we have not given them a clear signal to reduce global warming pollution, American businesses continue to make long-term capital investments that commit us to ever-increasing global warming emissions. Our inaction has discouraged the deployment of existing technologies and development of new technologies."
America will be a backwater, they warn, as "foreign companies are advancing innovative designs and patents in photovoltaics, auto technology, wind and efficient buildings".

"We urge you to provide leadership on this critical issue..."

Several bills are before Congress, including the Strong Economy & Climate Protection Act, which would cap emissions from large polluters. Republican Sen. John McCain says he will re-introduce the Climate Stewardship Act, which would cap greenhouse gas emissions.

Australian farmers are blocked from receiving full value for the carbon they sequester by the refusal of President Bush to mandate cap and trade and the way the Commonwealth Government in Australia takes its cues from the US.

CRC for Greenhouse Accounting closed

The Cooperative Research Centre for Greenhouse Accounting, opened in 1999, has been closed. The Centre has not been re-funded. The Centre's website will be maintained. The CRC announced the closure with this statement: "Tasked with a vision to develop world-class capability in greenhouse accounting that would support Australia in meeting the greenhouse challenge on the land, the CRC has achieved that and much more Through the seven-year life of the CRC its members have produced about 400 first class journal papers. Of 15 Centre papers examined, six are in the top 1 per cent in their field for citations, and all are in the top 10 per cent. The citations will only get better in coming years. The Centre's website currently serves about 46,000 sessions a month and eCarbon News reaches nearly 2000 people. More than 30 PhD students have been an integral part of the CRC, and four CRC Members became Professors during the life of the CRC. The Centre has held more than 30 CRC workshops and briefings that have delivered our messages to at least a couple of thousand of people from all sectors of the community. Members attended and contributed to conferences, seminars and briefings all over the world - in this financial year alone members made an average of about four presentations a week. CRC for Greenhouse Accounting research has contributed to Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Guidelines and greenhouse gas inventory methods, to the development and implementation the New South Wales Greenhouse Gas Abatement Scheme, the National Carbon Accounting System, the proposed (Australian) National Emissions Trading Scheme, to international and national standards, to individual firms through consultancies, and to the development of local, state, federal and industry policy. The CRC is proud of its contribution to greenhouse science, and its members look forward to continuing their contributions through other avenues."

Get set for a "Carbon Windfall"

The farm sector is poised for a "carbon windfall", according to ma report in Stock & Land, June 22, 2006

"A NATIONAL emissions trading scheme has the potential to pour more than $600 million into Australian farm coffers over five years," says Farm Online. "A new report on the implications of a trading scheme for the farm sector found that even at conservative prices of $6-$10 per tonne of CO2 equivalent (tCO2e), the ability to trade emissions offsets created from improved farm practices could deliver between $360 and $600m in revenue over five years."

At prices around the level of the spot market operating under the NSW Greenhouse Gas Abatement Scheme, the potential revenue windfall would be double that.

Carbon credits for cow s---!

US dairy farmers are now being paid carbon credits. Darryl Vander Haak, a dairy farmer in Lynden, Washington State, and Dennis Haubenschild, from Princeton, Minnesota, were the first to be paid for capturing methane, a greenhouse gas, from manure on their farms using anaerobic digesters. “It’s one more revenue stream that helps us keep producing milk for our customers,” said Mr Vander Haak. The two dairy farmers were credited with preventing the release of over 720 tons of methane - equivalent to more than 13,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide. At current prices of $2/ton, the “carbon credits” produced by these two projects are worth more than $26,000. They will generate additional credits each year.
"American farmers deserve to be recognized for the actions they take to reduce global warming. Cash for carbon credits is a great place to start,” says Jim Jensen, of Environmental Credit Corp. (ECC), a leading supplier of environmental credits to global financial markets. ECC, a part of the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX), worked with the farmers to certify their methane emission reductions. The CCX is the world’s first (and North America’s only) voluntary, legally binding rules-based greenhouse gas emissions allowance trading system. Manure accounts for 6.6% of total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. Anaerobic digester technology is used to control odors, produce renewable power and organic soil treatments.
Pictured:Dairy farmer Darryl Vander Haak receives his first cheque for carbon credits from Jim Jensen of Environmental Credit Corp. (Photo: ECC)

Congress rebuffs Bush 3 times on Climate

America's alternative to the Kyoto Protocol, the Asia Pacific Climate Partnership (AP6), recently took a hit when the Bush Administration's request for funding to kick it off was rejected by the House of Representatives. Both Republicans and Democrats in Congress support more substantial measures to reduce greenhouse emissions along the lines of the Kyoto Protocol.
AP6 rejects mandatory cap and trade regimes, believing there is time to develop technology solutions to the climate crisis. President Bush promised $250m to fund AP6. But Congress holds the purse strings, and the House Appropriations Committee rejected it. This defeat marks the third time the Bush administration attempted and failed to obtain funding for its climate plan.
The Partnership - whose members include non-Kyoto countries America and Australia, plus signatories China, India, Japan and South Korea - rejects emission reduction targets. The US and Australia are the only members to commit funds so far.

"I'm no longer sceptical" - David Attenborough

"I was sceptical about climate change. I was cautious about crying wolf. . . . But I'm no longer sceptical," said David Attenborough in an article in British newspaper The Independent. "Now I do not have any doubt at all. I think climate change is the major challenge facing the world. I have waited until the proof was conclusive that it was humanity changing the climate. The thing that really convinced me was the graphs connecting the increase of carbon dioxide in the environment and the rise in temperature, with the growth of human population and industrialisation. The coincidence of the curves made it perfectly clear we have left the period of natural climatic oscillation behind and have begun on a steep curve, in terms of temperature rise, beyond anything in terms of increases that we have seen over many thousands of years."

Makin' Carbon

This is what 2000 sheep can do to 10 acres in 24 hours. This is called animal impact. We let this lot dry off – the first shot taken in December.










Then we let them in mid March to eat what they can find and stomp the rest in to the ground, along with their poop and piddle. It is a natural tilling and fertilising effect.









Long periods of rest followed by high intensity grazing and disturbance is the white man’s way of encourag-ing the perennial pastures.








The perennials are deep-rooted and they aerate and fertilise soil and make it porous and spongey and more likely to hold water longer. The biomass beneath the soil is the secret carbon storage facility that out-performs forests.















And this is what it looks like 6 weeks later in late April (a non-growing season). Fresh grass growing green with no rain.

Meet Coalition Members Online

Great News!

Now you can 'meet' members of the Carbon Coalition online and share ideas and opinions when you sign up as a member of the Coalition discussion group at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/carboncoalition.

You can use it to read and reply to group messages.
You can start a new discussion.
We can use it to share photos with group members.
We can use it to coordinate events via a shared calendar.
We can conduct polls to ask members how they feel about any topic.

I will be checking it regularly as a guide to what you would like to see posted on the web and blog sites.

You are our greatest resource in our quest for carbon credit justice. The combined brainpower of the group is our edge.

Please go to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/carboncoalition and sign up. I'll see you there.

Peter Andrews endorses Carbon Coalition

Peter Andrews, whose Natural Sequence Farming approach to water management was made famous on ABC TV's "Australian Story" endorsed the objectives of the Carbon Coalition and urged cooperation between the Coalition and his organisation.
"We have to cooperate if we are to succeed," he said.



Peter and Coalition Convenor Michael Kiely addressed 250 farmers from the Manning District in Gloucester, NSW at a LandCare Innovative Farmers’ Forum on Saturday. "The processes for achieving high carbon levels will in many cases be the same as those needed for restoring balance in landscape hydrology," he said. His beliefs are based on the bedrock principle that we should be managing the landscape to mimic Mother Nature. “This country ran itself and ran its water and it costed nothing. So if we start to plan these things and it costs a lot of money, then we’ve probably got it wrong,” he told the gathering.
Michael's presentation - “Uamby: A Carbon Farm” – was based on soil management trials run by his wife Louisa at their Mudgee district property Uamby over five years and naturally led into a presentation about the Carbon Coalition. The Uamby case study was chosen for the event because so many different techniques for building soil carbon had been tried, according to organiser Col Freeman of Manning Landcare.
Many present expressed interest in the Coalition and a special Q&A session was held at the close of the seminar focussing on the Coalition and how people can get involved.

Carbon rises to US$23.50/t

The price quoted on European carbon trading markets for a ton of carbon rose to US$23.50 yesterday. (Prices shown in Euros on chart.)

Carbon price bounces back

The price quoted on European carbon trading markets for a ton of carbon bouncedd back to US$20.50 yesterday. (Prices shown in Euros on chart.)

More Republicans break ranks with Bush on Carbon

The US House Appropriations Committee this week amended the 2007 Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations bill to call on Congress to enact a mandatory greenhouse gas cap-and-trade system. The amendment was sponsored by Representative Norm Dicks (D-WA), was passed by voice vote on May 10, 2006. Committee Chair Jerry Lewis (R-CA) voiced support for the amendment and refused a request from some Republicans to hold a roll-call vote. Dicks called the amendment's passage a "first step." House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD) told E&E Daily,"Global warming is now accepted by almost all."
The appropriations bill is now headed to the House floor, where the amendment could be removed before the bill is passed.
The language of the amendment is as follows:

"The Congress finds that (1) greenhouse gases accumulating in the atmosphere are causing average temperatures to rise at a rate outside the range of natural variability and are posing a substantial risk of rising sea-levels, altered patterns of atmospheric and oceanic circulation, and increased frequency and severity of floods and droughts; (2) there is a growing scientific consensus that human activity is a substantial cause of greenhouse gas accumulation in the atmosphere; and (3) mandatory steps will be required to slow or stop the growth of greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere.

"It is the sense of the Congress that there should be enacted a comprehensive and effective national program of mandatory, market-based limits and incentives on emissions of greenhouse gases that slow, stop, and reverse the growth of such emissions at a rate and in a manner that (1) will not significantly harm the United States economy ; and (2) will encourage comparable action by other nations that are major trading partners and key contributors to global emissions." (5/11/06)

On March 29, 2006 Representatives Tom Udall (D-NM) and Tom Petri (R-WI) introduced the "Keep America Competitive Global Warming Policy Act of 2006”. "The continuing absence of a meaningful, mandatory policy in the United States is a significant impediment to a global consensus to slow the growth of greenhouse gas emissions," they stated in a press release. "By introducing this bill, we are working to fill that void and encourage lawmakers to take the first step toward responding to the increasingly urgent signs of global warming."

The bill creates a mandatory cap for greenhouse gas emissions, set prospectively at emissions levels three years after the enactment of the legislation, rather than at today's levels. It also includes a "safety valve" that initally limits the price of an emission allowance to $25 per ton of carbon (equivalent to roughly $7 per ton of carbon dioxide) in order to prevent a price run-up. The price of the safety valve can increase beyond inflation only after the President and Secretary of State determine that developing countries are taking comparable actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Finally, the bill is revenue neutral to the Treasury and includes free allocation of allowances to promote the development and implementation of carbon-reducing technologies.

(Report from the AMerican Geological Institute)

Carbon market volumes booming

The global carbon market could be worth US$30 billion in 2006, according to the World Bank. Carbon contracts worth US$7.5 billion changed hands to the end of April, compared with a total of almost $11 billion in 2005.
This follows a 40-times increase in volumes of carbon dioxide (CO2) allowances traded in 2005 compared to 2004.
"We have a working market that has grown faster than expected," said Andrei Marcu, president of the International Emissions Trading Association.

Don't plant that tree! Grow grass instead

Trees are not always good carbon sinks! Nature magazine let the cat out of the bag in 2002: planting trees is not the best way to fight global warming. Growing grass is.
Nature reported Duke University scientists saying that trees and shrubs growing in areas of good rainfall are less effective storehouses for carbon than native grasslands. Studies that found for trees ignored what was going on below ground, said Robert Jackson, associate professor of biology at Duke University. Under wet conditions, trees and shrubs can cause soil to lose carbon, effectively negating any sequesteringof carbon in the trees themselves.
``The study suggests that we need to look very closely at what's below ground before we add up just what's stored above ground in tree trunks,'' he said.

Six pairs of adjacent western grasslands were studied in the US. In one of each pair, trees and shrubs had invaded sometime in the last 100 years. In the drier locations, the "regrowth" led to an increase in the amount of carbon locked up in the soil. In wetter areas, however, the opposite happened.
Professor Jackson believes, "Grasses are deceptively productive. You don't see where all the carbon goes so there is a misconception that woody species store more carbon. That's just not always the case.''
The study helps dispel the notion that humans can plant their way out of global warming, said Daniel Becker, director of the Sierra Club global warming and energy program. ``We are going to need to tackle the industrial sources of emissions head-on rather than just plant a bunch of trees,'' Becker said.

"Fantastic news," says Tim Flannery

Tim Flannery greeted new of the Carbon Coalition as 'fantastic'.

"Thank you for this fantastic news. I really think that once farmers realize the enormous financial potential of biofuels and sedquestration we will see a swift government turn around on this issue. The job at the moment is a political one - getting polluters to pay for their right to pollute. With that great opportunities will arise.

Best wishes,

Tim"

Mr Flannery's books The Future Eaters and The Weather Makers have raised the soil depletion and Global Warming issues to prominence on the national agenda.

While there is a considerable body of evidence put forward by sceptics seeking to debunk Global Warming as a myth perpetrated by environmentalists in order to win political control of natural resource management, the weight of scientific opinion in the world is so uniformly behind the predictions of warming that the community now seems to accept it as a fact. The Carbon Coalition does not agree with everything put forward by green activists, but accepts that Global Warming is a real issue, that emission caps should be imposed on greenhouse gas emitters, and that an offset market for trading carbon credits should be instigated in Australia. Moreover, barriers to Australian farmers trading their carbon credits on the European market should be removed by Australia ratifying the Kyoto Protocol.

Sackett attacks Carbon Farming

It had to happen. The vested interests of traditional agriculture are fighting back. In a letter to the editor of The AUSTRALIAN FARM JOURNAL, a leading rural business consultant David Sackett attacked Carbon Coalition Councillor David Marsh for being a "carbon farmer", accusing him of running a 'subsistence farming' operation because he wasn't driving the soil to maximise short term profitability. He complained that the article in the Journal which featured David's extraordinary performance over the three years of drought did not provide enough financial data. He claimed David was understocked when David was stocking to the capacity of the landscape. In other words, Sackett complained that David did not destroy and deplete the soil by running his property hard, spreading artificial fertilisers which increase the acidity of the soil, lead to algal blooms in waterways, and kill the natural microbial life in the soil that builds carbon.

As David is too much a gentleman to engage in a spat, and as it is an attack on carbon farming concept, the Coalition wrote a letter in reply:


Dear Sir,

David Sackett’s contribution to Australian agriculture is well known, but his dismissal of David Marsh’s approach to farming is unworthy of him.
David made a profit in the three worst drought years in living memory. (How many farmers can say that?) He did not have to handfeed at all. He did not lose groundcover in that period. He therefore did not have to resow pastures after the drought, a considerable saving in capital expenditure.
He did it by “matching livestock carrying numbers to the carrying capacity of the landscape” and by keeping input costs down. Gross turnover is irrelevant. Profit is what counts.
Input costs have rocketed ahead of prices that farmers can get for their produce. At the same time the natural resource base on which they depend for future profits is rapidly declining.
Environmental entrepreneurs like David are interested in tomorrow’s profits as well as today’s. If businesses benchmarking in the top 5% of production economic performance were forced to account for the real cost of their operations (deferred cost of depeleted resource base), their balance sheets would look very different.
This is not an ideological divide. It is a paradigm shift. There can be little understanding between people operating under different paradigms because the past cannot understand the future and the future cannot talk to the past in terms it will understand. Farmers like David are simply getting on with learning how to increase profits while improving their resource base. They are not insisting that others be like them.
David is a member of the Council of the Carbon Coalition Against Global Warming, a new farmers’ movement which aims to enable farmers to sell carbon credits on the global greenhouse emissions market, based on the carbon sequestered in agricultural soils. This development will significantly alter the economics of farming as well as attitudes to the natural resource base.

Michael Kiely
Convenor
Carbon Coalition Against Global Warming
“Uamby”
Goolma NSW

What is it about Conservatives and Climate Change?

163 countries have signed the Kyoto protocol on greenhouse gas emissions and two governments have refused: conservative governments in America and Australia. Now the new Canadian Conservative government wants to join them.
It has slashed spending on the country's climate change program. Canada's Liberal government had committed C$10 billion up to 2012 for climate change, but that has been cut to C$2 billion.
Although Canada has ratified the Kyoto Protocol and has a target to reduce its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to 6% below 1990 levels by 2012, it would like to skip out and join the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate (AP6). This arrangement was set up by the US to counter the damage done to its environmental credentials, both at home and abroad, when it refused to ratify Kyoto Protocol which it had helped to develop. Joining it in the "Coalition of the Unwilling" - countries unwilling to force companies emitting greenhouse gases to buy carbon credits - was one country: Australia. China, India, Japan, and South Korea are members but also signatories to the Kyoto Protocol. AP6 is a voluntary agreement that focuses on developing clean technologies but, unlike the Kyoto Protocol, does not impose binding targets for reducing emissions. AP6 represents more than 50% of world carbon emissions while Kyoto covers only 35%.
Canada's desire for joining AP6 was criticised by Prof. Gordon McBean of the Institute of Catastrophic Loss Reduction at the University of Western Ontario. Voluntary programmes mostly measure actions that companies would have taken anyway, he says. While Canada emits only 2% of world emissions, it is very vulnerable to climate change.
PM Stephen Harper said Conservative "ideologues" in his government were urging withdrawal from Kyoto, even though the majority of Canadians support the Protocol. Slashing the budget was the next best thing.

Carbon market hits record low!

These prices - from Point Carbon - are in Euros:

Just weeks after hitting a record high of US$37/ton, the price of Carbon crashed to around US$10/ton on the European market. The reason?
Emission reports from the Netherlands, Czech Republic, France and Walloon region of Belgium came in at lower than expected rates for 2005. The demand for carbon credits depends on the actual levels of GHG emissions of various countries compared to their targets. If the countries achieve higher level of emission reductions than their targets, then the companies in those countries need not buy additional carbon credits. If they emit higher levels they have to buy additional carbon credits in their own country and in developing countries to meet their reduction targets.
Greater awareness of emission targets and the heavy cost for non-compliance may dampen demand for carbon credits.
Still, at US10/ton, farmers stand to make a hefty margin on carbon farming and sequestration.