The Greens will vote against what?

We have heard Christine Milne speaking on the Carbon Farming Initiative twice in week, including last Thursday at Rob Oakshott's Land Use Forum at which AAP alleges she vowed to block the legislation. She did not say anything like that in her speech or in answers to questions. (She may have said it privately to the AAP journalist.)

Christine said the Greens objected to perverse outcomes, such as was the case with forestry under the old regime where whole farms were sold to forest sink companies who planted the entire property and the next and the next, and planted single species biodiversity deserts of oil mallee and they were marketed as Managed Investment Schemes which inevitably failed. Meanwhile the forests marched across the countryside, sucking the children out of the schools, the business out of the local townships, and the lifeblood out of rural communities.We agree with her that such forest sinks have perverse outcomes. The new Carbon Farming Initiative makes promoters prove their project will have no environmental or social or food security detriment.

Christine Milne believes we need a national vision to merge the siloed solutions into an integrated plan, to avoid perverse outcomes. Such outcomes are easy to come across in the world of carbon. For instance, opening the Carbon Market in Australia with only forestry offsets for biosequestration would distort the market, channelling money that would have transformed farm landscapes and soils to health. And every day we put off the massive task of drawing down the legacy CO2 in the atmosphere takes us closer to overshooting the 2°C target. It also takes us closer to the day we need to feed 9bn people. And closer to the day we mourn the passing of the last family farm into corporate hands. Now there's a perverse set of outcomes. I'd vote against that.

Ylad opens first store/depot/office

An audience of 250 helped Bill and Rhonda Daly launch their new facility in Young NSW - and the celebrations took on the atmosphere of a country wedding. TV's celebrity gardener Costa was the star attraction. (He is known as Jesus to the schoolboy rugby teams he referees.) There was also a rousing speech by Graeme Sait of Nutri-Tech Solutions. The Biological Farming Army marches on.

We put the question: the answer is 'No'.

We asked the first question of Minister Combet after his presentation to MP Rob Oakshott's Land Use Forum Thursday last. "The $20million Soil Carbon Research Program will only provide one fifth of the data needed to drive a comprehensive soil carbon sequestration model, according to sources inside the project. Will the Government meet the challenge and fund the balance of the work so farmers everywhere can have access to offset trading opportunities?" Minister Combet: "No." (It was a longer answer than that, but meant the same thing. He said they have to balance the budget. We're trying to balance the biosphere.) So now we know.

Readers might remember we complained to then Minister for Agriculture Tony Burke that we were not given an opportunity to comment on the structure of the research project. The Modelling Approach, to be useful, must have benchmark data that reflects practice. To make an accurate assessment of potential – to discover the benchmark - one would expect the research would seek to create the most favourable conditions within which the highest increases possible could be recorded. Such a study could see all the following practices actioned at the same time on the same piece of land (among others).

1. Grazing Management as a basic practice to use animals to transform the soil.

2. Pasture Cropping to stimulate native grasses.

3. Compost Teas using local compost to feed the soil microbes.

4. Biological Inoculant to address microbial community gaps.

5. Soil Stimulants to awaken microbes to action.

6. Water Management to rehydrate the landscape, reduce erosion and build biomass.

7. (Perhaps) Deep-ripping to start, subsoiling ongoing.

No one does just one thing when trying to increase carbon. It is always a portfolio approach. And it is not 1 + 1 + 1 = 3. It = 111. Potentially.

Major General nails the science - somebody's naked

The current scientific potentials for soil C sequestration are based almost exclusively on conventional land management. (Why?) It remained our dirty little secret until an ex-Governor General let the cat out of the bag during Independent MP Rob Oakshott's Land Use Forum this week at Parliament House. "The carbon sequestration potential under conventional farming practices should not be seen as the maximum possible or be the drivers of policy, when we know that numerous innovators have been achieving greater bio-sequestration outcomes by some orders of magnitude," he told the forum. The ex-GG seemed to be suggesting that there are two realities - parallel universes. One offers hope; the other doesn't. (Ex-GG is Major-General Michael Jeffrey)

The Biofert Microbe Army Marches On

They fly beneath the radar, but the powers that be know they are there and are terrified of them: the Biological Farmers. They have abandoned conventional agronomy, deciding to nurture rather than destroy the soil dwellers which can drive nutrient cycling and soil health. They source their fertilisers, etc. from private consultancies much maligned by the official extension officers because they sell 'product'. Naturally they cannot see how conventional, government-funded agronomy also sells product, in their case on behalf of multinational agrichemical corporations. The battle for the future is taking place at the grass roots, where private agronomists like Guy Web of Gaia Consultancy serve a growing base of clients. Officially these farmers are being conned by snake oil salesmen. In reality, these are confident, intelligent farmers who trust their own ability to judge results in the field. Guy provides education for his clients at his annual Grain-Maker seminars where farmers hear from speakers such as microbiologist Dr Chandra Iyer from Delta Laboratories [pictured with Guy Webb]. Chandra told this year's audience in Forbes that Phosphorus-solubilising bacteria can provide 50% of a crops P needs from the nutrient locked up in soil. More snake oil? The GRDC launched its own P-solubilising microbe product last month in a joint venture with Novozymes Biologicals. Has the worm turned? The GRDC distributed to 37000 growers a paper by 5 CSIRO scientists called "The Hidden Cost of Soil Sequestration" which concealed the existence of P-solubilising bacteria - claiming growers could not afford to grow humus because N, P and other nutrients that make up humus cost too much to buy. The core proposition was cost to the farmer. No mention was made of the free source: free-living N and P-fixing bacteria. One of the authors has agreed that it was misleading. Read it in the GRDC's GroundCover newsletter, September 2008. Passed on with approval by official agronomists. Ask not for whom the snake oils.

When the food runs out

"We talk about alternative energy; There is no alternative soil." Thus said Prof. John Crawford the University of Sydney Institute for Sustainable Solutions. He touched a nerve when he predicted that the world's soil will run out in 60 years recently in The Australian. "It is not to say that soil will disappear in 60 years, but when you consider the amount of topsoil lost in the past 100 years, that figure of 60 years starts not to look so daft."

The Australian report is optimistic about the reception that soil carbon methodologies will receive from the Domestic Offset Integrity Committee, the Government's gatekeeper: "A US Studies Centre conference in Sydney this month heard how Australia is at the forefront of the scientific understanding of soil carbon and how policy-makers here are ahead of the curve when it comes to thinking about ways to reward farmers for improving soil quality by building carbon content."

The urgency of the need for widespread adoption of soil carbon-friendly farm practices will eventually break down the barriers: John Crawford says soil health is at the root of most of the challenges that society faces in the next 30 years - food security, water supply, energy, climate change and health. "Soil is the basis for human health, and agriculture is the basis for civilisation and there is great historical evidence that most of the great ancient civilisations fell as a result of decline in their soil," he told The Australian. "What we need to find are incentives to start giving farmers the resources they need to manage the eco-system services that we've all taken for granted, and soil being the major part of that."

The shrinking family farm

The retiring Managing Director of the Grains Research Development Corporation, Peter Reading announced yesterday at the CCRSPI Conference that he expects 60% of his organisation's constituents will leave the industry in the next 10 years. He predicted that 15000 mainly family-owned farms would be absorbed into corporate-owned groups. (Twenty years ago there were 47000 grain growers in Australia. Today there are 25000.) These farmers paid an annual levy for the GRDC which says its primary objective is "to support effective competition by Australian grain growers in global grain markets, through enhanced profitability and sustainability."

Mike Kelly gets it right about soil

"We need to get carbon back in the soil to increase productivity," said Mike Kelly, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Agriculture, Forestry & Fisheries, Joe Ludwig, when he was speaking to an Horticulture Australia session at the CCRSPI Conference 2011 yesterday. Mike comes from an old dairying family from the Bega Valley, so he understands the farmers point of view. But, when questioned about the Government's plans to invest in soil carbon science, he referred to the funds already committed, even though Dr Jeff Baldock has indicated that the current Soil Carbon Research Program has been allocated enough money to do a fifth of the research needed to get the trade in soil carbon offsets off the ground. Mr Kelly said the Government was looking to private investment to come to the party. But investors invest for a return and a return comes from margins from turnover. How can there be sufficient turnover if the return to the farmer is too low to attract their interest. They are too low because the data populating the models is scant, covering less than 20% of the soil sequestering activities, and the naturally low performers at that. At the same time, the Department of Climate Change & Energy Efficiency has indicated that it will take a 'cautious' approach to soil carbon. The Victorian Parliamentary Inquiry into Soil Carbon Sequestration also decided on a 'cautious' approach and put the whole issue on the back-burner until there is more science. The DCCEE looks like it thinks a couple more rounds of research is needed. This could consume another 5 or 10 years. (One year to get the funds, three years to conduct the trials, one year to get published = one cycle; two cycles needed.) If this is soil carbon at the speed of science, the question needs to be asked: Is food security really a first order issue? Is getting more carbon in the soil a major answer to food security? Who is serious about this?

VERY RICH NATIONS CAN'T FEED THEMSELVES

Reuters reports that the United Arab Emirates is abandoning agriculture and buying farms in other countries and importing all food. The UAE, which has seven percent of the world's known oil reserves, is among the top per capita consumers of water in the world. Abu Dhabi consumes 550 litres per person per day, compared to a world average of 180-200 litres. "Wars can erupt because of water," said Mohammed Khalfan al-Rumaithi, director general of the UAE's National Emergency and Crisis Management Authority. Saudi Arabia plans to rely entirely on imports by 2016 after trying to be self-sufficient for 3 years. The UAE is investing heavily in farms across the globe.

Lal congratulates Carbon Coalition

Australia leads the world in carbon farming, according to Professor Rattan Lal, America's most respected soil carbon expert. "I think that Australia's Government and farmers are way ahead more so than the United States... The awareness of policy makers and the tremendous interest from the farming community with the Carbon Coalition group here which is incentivising its colleagues and members community into that. I think Australia is going to set an example to the world community on this type of carbon trading and farming carbon, where farmers can buy and sell carbon, and trade it, and make carbon in soil another income stream for them through carbon credit trading." Lal was in Australia for the Soil Carbon Summit staged by the US Studies Centre.

Global Summit The Woodstock of Soil Carbon (Going down to Yasgur's Farm)

Robert Hill (John Howard's Environment Minister who negotiated the famous "Australia Clause" which allowed us to set a target of 108% in the first commitment period of Kyoto) is a genuine soil carbon believer. As Director of the US Studies Centre at University of Sydney, last week he hosted a 3 day summit of soil carbon specialists from around the world. From the US, Canada, UK, Europe, and NZ, they came to volunteer their time to discuss with each other how to achieve a breakthrough to save the soils of the world from disappearing. Professor Iain Young from UNE set the pace with a terrifying presentation on the scale of the problem. If the panda becomes extinct, we lose the pandas... But if we lose the last two species of soil microbe, we all die. Rousing stuff. Cut to the last presentation by Professor John Crawford of the University of Sydney and we 'stakeholders' hear the result of the experts' two days of brainstorming for a breakthrough. The draft of the "Soil Security Initiative" lifted the spirits. The Goals included raising the issue of soil carbon to water cooler conversation status. They also include soil sustainability through the change of land management by farmers. The strategies in the draft include increasing soil C to optimise soil function, improving engagement between farmers and scientists, establish a global network of researchers, devise incentives for farmers that will get them to manage soil carbon optimally, and finally build a new partnership between city and country. In between these two presentations, it became clear that "Incentivise farmers appropriately" does not necessarily include trading offsets - for three reasons: 1. The entire science community has been unable to record carbon and biomass increases that farmers have achieved. (Explained by the Norton Syndrome, explained in the upcoming first issue of Carbon Farmer magazine.) So they don't believe such increases are possible. We know two important things about the gap between farm and lab reality: no farmer uses just one management practice; they tend to use two or three together; this creates a level of complexity because of the interaction between the practices and the ecological nature of soil carbon's networks and multiple levels of relationships. Scientists tend to study one management change in a vacuum. Therefore they always have small amounts to report. 2. Almost all scientists believe that direct measurement is too expensive and consequently we will rely on models. "We're gonna have to trust the models, even though they aren't perfect," said Prof. Bill Parton from Colorado State University who specialises in modeling and has done so for 40 years. Conclusion: The models are being populated with this discounted data, which is further discounted by an uncertainty factor because it is not direct measurement, it's several steps away from reality, hence a discount for risk. The end point of this could be that only small amounts are offered to farmers in return for a change in culture and business practice and the demand they personally remain liable if the carbon escapes at any time during the next 100 years. No farmer is going to want the risk at those prices. Even at A$100/tonne - according to Prof. Lal the amount being budgeted for by geosequestration advocates - a farmer could expect to make $25/acre, which implies small amounts. 3. As reported in CSIRO’s magazine ECOS (September 2010), there is a consensus among scientists that soil offsets trading is inappropriate. It is common to hear the following: "The benefits of increased soil carbon levels are so great that farmers shouldn't need offsets." This was said from the podium at the Summit without challenge. Many scientists have trouble understanding farmers. You never hear a farmer saying such things.

But the bigger issue is this: NO FARMERS, NO OFFSETS... NO OFFSETS, NO DRAW DOWN.... NO DRAWDOWN, NO SOIL SECURITY... NO HOPE. Instead of obsessing the details, the powers that be should set themselves the goal of getting as many farmers as possible to sequester as much soil carbon as possible, as fast as possible. If soil is as important as they say, they would do whatever it takes to achieve the change en masse. The cost of measurement can and has been solved. By creative thinking... something Prof.Alex McBratney pleaded for from his colleagues. When there is a decent return from soil carbon sequestration, the innovations will flow. If it is left to education and extension about the benefits of soil carbon (respectfully, why has it not worked already?) or direct payment by government (which will last until the next election, maybe, or the next minister), it will resolve itself in the way Dr Andrew Rawson suggested during the panel session (pictured above): "I've heard it all before and nothing has happened of lasting value then. Why should this be different?" To meet those big hairy goals, there is going to have to be some out-of-the-box thinking. Einstein said we can't solve a problem using the same paradigm that caused it in the first place. To break through we must step out of the box and break the rules governing normal thought about the issue. Smash the paradigm. Dr Jeff Baldock declined our invitation to ‘break the rules’ and join us in stepping outside the box, citing the need to maintain integrity. (The event was expertly organised by Andea Koch.)

Farmers have little input into these deliberations. Their advisers (associations and institutes) take science at face value and recite lists of problems when what is needed are solutions. Which is why we have founded the Carbon Farming & Trading Association... to see soil carbon traded and farmers paid fairly for what they grow.

Download Application Form here:

http://www.carbonfarmersofaustralia.com.au/CarbonFarmers/Representation/Association.html

METHS, BUT WHERE'S NITROGEN

Offset methodologies

Offset projects established under the Carbon Farming Initiative will need to apply methodologies approved by the Government. These will contain the detailed rules for implementing and monitoring specific abatement activities and generating carbon credits under the scheme.

Methodologies can be developed and proposed by private project proponents, as well as government agencies.

The Australian Government is working with industry and other stakeholders, state government officials and technical experts to develop offset methodologies that have broad application. These methodologies are expected to be approved and rolled out progressively from April 2011.

An independent expert committee, the Domestic Offsets Integrity Committee, has been established to assess offset methodologies proposed under the scheme and provide recommendations to the Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency on their approval. The committee will ensure that methodologies are rigorous and lead to real abatement.

Once approved, Carbon Farming Initiative methodologies will be published on this website.

Submitting a methodology for assessment

The proposed process for assessing Carbon Farming Initiative methodologies is outlined in the consultation paper and draft methodology submission guidelines.

Interested stakeholders are invited to provide feedback on the assessment process and guidelines as part of their submission on the Carbon Farming Initiative design by 21 January 2011, or separately by email to CFI@climatechange.gov.au.

Methodology development

The Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency and the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry are working with industry to develop offset methodologies that have broad application.

This work is being progressed through a number of methodology work streams, including:

• Soil carbon and biochar;
• Reforestation, forest management and avoided deforestation;
• Savanna fire management;
• Landfill gas recovery;
• Manure management; and
• Management of methane from livestock.

Technical working groups comprising representatives of expert and practitioner groups are being established by the departments to review current scientific knowledge, determine any requirements for additional research and finalise methodologies under each work stream.

For further information on the working groups contact CFI@climatechange.gov.au

Government releases Carbon Farming Initiative detail

MINISTERIAL PRESS RELEASE

The Gillard Labor Government has announced another major step towards establishing the Carbon Farming Initiative, a carbon offsets scheme that will provide new economic opportunities for farmers, forest growers and landholders and help the environment by reducing carbon pollution.

The Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency, Greg Combet, said the government was releasing draft legislation and methodology guidelines for the scheme.

“While there is still work to be done, the government is making these early drafts available now to give stakeholders more information on how the proposals described in the consultation paper released last November would work in

released early in 2011 for consultation with Indigenous communities and other stakeholders.

Mr Combet said the government welcomed stakeholder feedback on the details of the scheme. Feedback will help prepare final legislation and guidelines following closure of the consultation paper submission period on 21 January 2011.

Spotlight on a scientific approach to making a market

Scientific authorities believe that, despite the Carbon Farming Initiative becoming law, soil carbon offsets will be delayed while Science finds solutions to the major issues Additionality, Permanence, and Measurement and Verification. This is likely to mean delays.. but for how long? In September 2010, in its official publication ECOS, the CSIRO reported, “There’s a virtual consensus among soil scientists that Australian farmers shouldn’t need any extra incentives to increase their levels of soil carbon.”

“… market-based C-trading schemes involving pastures, [will be] exposed to the risks of complicated, ill-conceived, ill-understood, poorly regulated financial instruments and arrangements that are replete with opportunity for fraudulent scams and inappropriate diversion of community wealth to the personal fortunes of scheme managers and traders, while not delivering the scheme objectives, reminiscent of those involved in the Global Financial Crisis of 2007-2009.”

(Roger M. Gifford, CSIRO Plant Industry, Carbon sequestration in Australian Grasslands: Policy and Technical Issues, Proceedings of FAO workshop on ‘The role of grassland carbon sequestration in the mitigation of climate change’, Rome, 15-17 April 2009)

Dr Clive Splash, CSIRO environmental economist: ”There is the potential for emissions trading to have undesirable ethical and psychological impacts and to crowd out voluntary actions.” (Clive L. Splash, The Brave New World of Carbon Trading, Munich Personal RePEc Archive, December 2009)

“So, for soil carbon, we need the best available tested science to avoid the situation where our children have to pay off a debt in the future, because we overstated the carbon benefit today,” says Dr Michael Battaglia, Theme Leader, Sustainable Agriculture Flagship, CSIRO. (“Putting the science into carbon offsets”, CSIRO advertorial, The Land 2 December, 2010)

A long time... let's keep the spotlight on...

In praise of scientists

On the eve of Soil Carbon Credits becoming law in Australia, the Carbon Coalition thanks and acknowledges the following scientists who supported our efforts without compromising their science: Dr Annette Cowie, Dr Alex. McBratney, Dr Brian Murphy, Dr Rattan Lal, Dr Peter Ampt, Rosemary Hook, Dr Jeff Baldock, Dr Andrew Rawson, and Dr John Crawford. Your principled position has retained public confidence in science. Thank you.

2011 - YEAR OF CARBON CREDITS FOR FARMERS

THE YEAR 2011 will be remembered as the Year of the Carbon Farmer. The Minister Greg Combet will release the draft legislation for comment this week (first week of January) and we have until January 20 to comment. The Bill will be submitted to Parliament sometime in February so it can be proclaimed in time for the market to start on 1 July, 2011.

Here's how it will work: The Legislation lays down broad guidelines. Private individuals and companies can then submit 'meths' (which is industry-speak for 'methodologies'). A methodology is a collection of solutions that make it possible to generate offsets for one of a list of 11 on-farm activities. The solutions solve the challenges entitled Additionality, Permanence, Leakage, Measurement, etc. The 'meths' are considered by the DOIC (the Domestic Offsets Integrity Committee - already selected) which recommends to the Minister which can proceed to recruit farmers wanting to get involved in offsets trading.

The Government has allowed for flexibility by allowing for Kyoto- and Non-Kyoto-international units, compliance and voluntary units, Australian carbon credit units... there will be a range of options to suit a range of needs. Stay tuned.

No bargain basement carbon will work

No cheap carbon

Michael Fraser, the managing director of AGL, has said his company will not start making investments in lower-carbon energy if the carbon price is below $30 per tonne… There is a minimum carbon price below which no real improvements in the carbon efficiency of the economy occurs, writes Michael Molitor, Visiting Professorial Fellow at the Climate Change Research Centre at UNSW, in the Climate Spectator.

"If our policy leads to a low carbon price, driven, in part, by high levels of compensation to big polluters, then the liable entities will make no real investments in de-carbonisation. They will pay the price of buying the few carbon instruments they will require to achieve compliance and make every attempt to pass on these costs to their customers. A low carbon price with high levels of compensation is, ironically, exactly what Tony Abbott called it, “a great big tax”. The result is our worst case scenario: Increased costs to consumers, and the economy in general, with no resulting carbon efficiency benefit.

"The other problem with a low carbon price is that the amount of capital required to de-carbonise our economy is tens of billions of dollars per year. The only way to move this much capital is to make it sufficiently attractive for the big financial players to enter the game. A low carbon price with a limited number of carbon instruments trading (due to the large allocation of free carbon permits as the principal form of compensation) fails to create the large liquid market conditions that attract the major financial players into the game…

"Finally, a higher carbon price will result in larger revenues to the federal Treasury. Instead of providing compensation to big polluters for the losses in the value of their high carbon-emitting assets, it would be economically preferable to use the carbon revenue to provide these companies with the capital to invest in lower-carbon emitting assets. In most cases these lower-carbon emitting assets are much more efficient and will actually save companies money."

Look what Santa brought us: Carbon Credits legislation

Who would have thought 5 short years ago we'd be spending the holiday break working through the proposed legislation for making the dream of soil carbon credits a reality. The Minister Greg Combet has his foot to the floor on the Carbon Farming Initiative. He is releasing the Legislation in the first week of January. We were delivered a preview version on Christmas Eve. The 300-page document would have taken several months to draft, evidence that the Government is serious.

Information on making a submission can be found on the Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficieny's website, click here. To see our paper on the Consultation Paper released by the Department, click here. To see a paper on Perverse Outcomes from Additionality, click here.

We have three critical 'bellwether' issues: Additionality, Permanence and Measurement. Each is capable of delaying the introduction of soil carbon offsets - and even threatening its emergence at all - because these Kyoto principles were devised for factories and forests but not farms.

ADDITIONALITY means that, if the change in land management has already been made or would have been made for business reasons* or becomes common practice in the district, it cannot earn credits because the abatement does not reduce emissions or sequester greenhouse gases any more than if the scheme was not in operation. (*Business reasons can include higher productivity or profitability.)

PERMANENCE is not defined in the Bill. That task is left to the designers of methodologies which will be submitted to the Domestic Offsets Integrity Committee. But there is provision for a 5% "risk of reversal buffer" - this means that 5% of all units submitted by a grower are banked as insurance against losses. Growers could also be asked to "relinquish'' units (ie. repay the money if there is reversal of sequestration). Growers are also subject to Carbon Maintenance Obligations and can be handed a Carbon Restoration Order. Reversal can included losses caused by natural means (drought, fire, etc). The important word in this section on Permanence is "may" in that "The Administrator may... require the project proponent to relinquish a specified number.." Growers who choose to be 'aggregated' into pools can avoid this liability (where the loss of carbon is not intentional) in programs which include their own buffer, such as the Prime Carbon system.

MEASUREMENT is also not specified in the Bill, but emissions, removals and reductions "should be measurable and capable of being verified." Hints are given, such as "a method... should not be inconsistent with the National Greenhouse Gas Inventory". It should also be "consistent with relevant scientific results published in peer review literature." Here we have major problems: 1. If consistency with NGGI means using the method described in Neil McKenzie, CSIRO Land and Water, National Carbon Accounting System, Technical Report No. 14, September 2000, the cost of measurement would make the trade difficult to justify. 2. If peer review data is to set the benchmark for rates of sequestration, the viability of the trade is further endangered because of the widely-accepted phenomenon of "scientific lag" - ie. that Science lags Practice when it comes to reproducing the results achieved in the field by grassroots innovations such as the main techniques used for sequestering carbon in soil. Peer reviewed data is code for 15 years delay while a practice passes through consecutive 3-year trials (+ 2 years for finding funding at the beginning of the cycle and publishing at the end of the cycle.) The Gap between Science and Practice can become institutionalised by the Norton Effect. Professor Ben Norton told a WA Department of Food and Agriculture workshop in 2002, that the majority of published research studies of rotational grazing find that continuous grazing is better than or comparable to rotational grazing in terms of either animal or plant production. Yet “Hundreds of graziers on three continents claim that their livestock production has increased by half or doubled or even tripled following the implementation of rotational grazing…” In the McClymont Lecture in 1998 he said: Science, based on 'hundreds of studies' concluded that planned grazing is not cost effective. (Norton, BE., "The application of grazing management to increase sustainable livestock production," Animal Production In Australia, Vol. 22 1998).

There is one escape hatch from the dead hand of peer review: The Minister. Section 124 (2) says that, if a method is the same as one determined under Subsection 10 (3) of the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Act 2007, it is taken to be "consistent with relevant scientific results published in peer reviewed literature." Ss 10 (3) says that the Minister "may determine methods by which the amounts of ... removals ... are to be measured." And the Minister "may specify different methods or criteria for different industry sectors and ... different methods or criteria depending on the circumstances in which the ... removals... occurred." If Minister Combet wants Soil Carbon Sequestration any time in the next two decades - precisely the time when it can play its most important role - he has to bite the bullet on peer reviewed data.

Signs look good for Agriculture post Cancun

Here are all the reasons why soil carbon offsets are now inevitable after Cancun:
1.The GIgatonne Gap: The pledges made are insufficient to cap global warming at 2 °C. Researchers say the pledges set the world on track for 3.2 °C warming.
2. IPCC getting desperate: The Chairman of the IPCC said that the world will have to take a serious look at geoengineering solutions, such as floating thousands of giant mirrors in space to deflect sunlight or dumping millions of tonnes of fertilizer or iron filings into the ocean to grow algae and sequester CO2.
3. Americans intransigent: President Bush said the American Way of Life is sacred. President Obama could not get cap and trade legislation through when he controlled both houses of Congress. It’s hard to see a day in the near future when the world will be prepared to set aggressive emissions targets.
4. World Bank gets it: The big end of town has noticed Agriculture and has discovered “Climate smart agriculture” or practical solutions for triple wins (co-benefits): adaptation, mitigation and food security. While its attention is on poor nations, the trading opportunities it is exploring would flow to farmers everywhere, based on equity.
5. Kyoto Protocols in danger: The US wants a new Kyoto based on the Copenhagen Accord, a much gentler regime.
Add to these developments the collapse of Britain’s largest Carbon Capture & Storage project into bankruptsy, and all indications point to good times ahead for Soil Carbon Credits.

WikiLeaks: Kyoto Protocols to be abolished?

Agreement. Accord. Protocol. What’s the difference and why does it matter? Firstly, there is a difference. An Accord is not a Protocol. And secondly, signing up to one commits you to a lot more than signing up to another. Like the difference between an ‘engagement’ and a ‘marriage’, words can make all the difference.
In the world of Climate Change diplomacy, there are four types of ‘agreements’: a “Convention”, “Protocols”, an “Accord”, and an “Agreement”. It started in 1988 when the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was first established to look into the problem. A large number of scientific reports sounded the alarm and in 1992 the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). This “Framework Convention” is an international environmental agreement aimed at stabilising Greenhouse Gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that will prevent dangerous man-made interference with the climate system. The convention is a legal framework, not an operational treaty. The legally binding document is the Kyoto Protocol, signed in 1997. To date 191 countries have signed and ratified it. Under the Protocols, 34 developed countries agree to bring down their emissions of gasses by certain amounts by certain times. The rest of the countries have no targets, based on the principle of "common but differentiated responsibilities." The parties agreed that:
1. the largest share of historical and current global emissions of greenhouse gases originated in developed countries;
2. per capita emissions in developing countries are still relatively low;
3. the share of global emissions originating in developing countries will grow to meet social and development needs.
The US has never ratified Kyoto. (Up until recently it was the world’s biggest emitter. China now has that honour.) The large emerging economies, China, India, and Brazil, have no obligations under the protocol. The nations gathered at Copenhagen in 2009 hoping they could get the big emitters to agree to set emissions reductions targets and be bound by them under the Protocols. The talks collapsed and from out of the wreckage a small group of nations – including America, China, and India – produced what they called an “Accord”, which is not legally binding. Nations signing the Accord pledge to meet targets and report on their progress voluntarily. But there was to be no legal obligation and no external auditing. We now know, thanks to Wikileaks, that America and China colluded together to ensure the talks failed because neither wants to be committed to targets under the Protocols. The delegates at Copenhagen did not ratify the Accord; they merely ‘noted’ it. Many were angry that the big emitters made their own arrangement and called it an “Accord”. However, to date, more than 100 nations have signed on, representing 80% of global emissions.
Which leads us to the Cancun “Agreement”. It contains much that was in the Accord, but this time the delegates have voted for it. The Cancun Agreement is important because for the first time the world’s 2 biggest emitters – China and USA - have committed to emissions targets. And for the first time the Agreement includes pledges from developing nations, who had no obligations under the Kyoto protocol. The Agreement formalises the pledges made in the aftermath of last year's failed Copenhagen talks. Crucially it did not tie developed nations to legally binding emissions cuts after the Kyoto protocol expires in 2012. Russia and Japan would not accept new targets under the protocol. They claimed it was unfair if other major polluters such as China and the US did not accept such targets.
Which means what? It means realpolitik will always decide international affairs. The big emitters are also the big economies and the big military powers. As they say, when the elephants dance the ants get off the dance floor. No amount of moral rectitude and finger wagging by Tuvalu or Friends of The Trees was ever going to bring the US to heel. Kyoto was impossible when Obama controlled numbers in Congress. Now it is even less likely. To get the Cacun Agreement signed, a decision on extending Kyoto after the 2nd compliance period runs out in 2012 was put off until 2011. Given America’s attitude, it doesn’t look good for the Protocols.
America’s chief climate envoy Todd Stern said several time before Cancun that his country will not ratify the Kyoto Protocol. The Obama Administration wanted the Copenhagen Accord to guide talks on a new treaty and urged further formalization of the Accord at Cancun – which is exactly what happened. Next year’s meeting in South Africa could see a new Protocol to substitute Kyoto, having the Copenhagen Accord as a starting point, according to Sergio Abranches, ecoblogger.

CSIRO’s final assault on soil carbon credits?

From the people who brought you the anti-soil carbon trading “Mythbusters”, The Hidden Cost of Humus illusion, and The Bucket Theory, the CSIRO has signalled that it will try to strangle the infant soil carbon offset in its cradle, using ‘robust science’ as the cord. In a paid editorial feature in The Land (2/12/2010).
Far from an enabling attitude, the article puts the emphasis not on the opportunity for the farmer but on ‘ensuring the highest standards of environmental integrity for any carbon offset on offer.’ Hard to argue with that Motherhood statement, but it is code for setting the bar so high that soils won’t get over.
For example, “The science needs to address soil carbon variations across paddocks, soils, and regions, as well as with seasons and climate.” To develop a system that can accommodate such complexity will take more than 5 years and be cost prohibitive when it arrives.
Finally, some good old fashioned CSIRO scare tactics: “So, for soil carbon, we need the best available tested science to avoid the situation where our children have to pay off a debt in the future, because we overstated the carbon benefit today,” says Dr Michael Battaglia. This is to make sure that if the soil carbon offsets make it through the maze, no farmer will take them up for fear of the ogres created by CSIR scientists. The CSIRO allows its scientists to comment widely outside their field of expertise, straying freely into economics and market dynamics with no expertise to support their statements. No one is suggesting that any market mechanism penalise a farmer’s children.
Why is the CSIRO so fixated on stopping soil carbon? A couple of papers from 2009 could hold a clue. Could it be that CSIRO has an ideological attitude to environmental markets?
Dr Clive Splash, an environmental economist, wrote this about offsets markets: ”The potential for manipulation to achieve financial gain, while showing little regard for environmental or social consequences, is evident as markets have extended internationally and via trading offsets. At the individual level, there is the potential for emissions trading to have undesirable ethical and psychological impacts and to crowd out voluntary action.” Dr Roger Gifford, a rangeland scientist, wrote: “…market-based C-trading schemes involving pastures [will] expose [farmers] to the risks of complicated, ill-conceived, ill-understood, poorly regulated financial instruments and arrangements that are replete with opportunity for fraudulent scams and inappropriate diversion of community wealth to the personal fortunes of scheme managers and traders, while not delivering the scheme objectives, reminiscent of those involved in the Global Financial Crisis of 2007-2009.”

Clearly CSIRO could not be seen to promote ethically undesirable activities.

1. “Putting the science into carbon offsets”, CSIRO advertorial, The Land 2 December, 2010
2. Clive L. Splash, The Brave New World of Carbon Trading, Munich Personal RePEc Archive, December 2009
3. Roger M. Gifford, CSIRO Plant Industry, “Carbon sequestration in Australian Grasslands: Policy and Technical Issues”, Proceedings of FAO workshop on The role of grassland carbon sequestration in the mitigation of climate change, Rome, 15-17 April 2009

What's in the Carbon Farming Initiative for you?

The Commonwealth Government’s Carbon Farming Initiative (CFI) aims to give farmers, landholders and forest owners access to domestic and international carbon markets. There are many opportunities for farmers and landholders in the CFI. They can earn offsets from a long list of activities, including:

• reforestation and revegetation – eg. plantations, integrated farm forestry and regrowth;
• reduced methane emissions from livestock – eg. diet management, rumen inoculants, etc.;
• reduced fertiliser emissions – eg. precision application, alternative fertilizers, etc.;
• manure management – eg. composting, anaerobic digesters and methane flaring;
• reduced emissions and/or increased sequestration in agricultural soils (soil carbon) – eg. no-till cultivation, grazing management, pasture cropping, nutrient management;
• savanna fire management –eg. avoiding large destructive fires while retaining environmentally-positive use of fire;
• avoided deforestation – eg. reduced land clearing;
• burning of stubble/crop residue - eg. stubble retention/incorporated, etc.;
• reduced emissions from rice cultivation – eg. reducing water levels in paddies to reduce methane emissions;
• reduced emissions from landfill waste – eg. composting, applying compost on soils.

Carbon Farmers of Australia recommend that Farmers decide which of the activities on this list are relevant to them and take a portfolio approach to them: Revenue from offsets will be maximized and opportunities won’t be missed. A typical ‘portfolio’ of activities could include fertilizer reduction/substitution + reduced methane from livestock + reduced landfill/farm composting + soil carbon sequestration.
While the scheme is scheduled to start on 1 July, 2011, not all the options will be ready. The forestry options were trading prior to the CFI and so will start early. Other ‘low hanging fruit’ includes reduced fertilizer usage and manure management/landfill waste. The others will come on stream as they have “Methodologies” approved.
Farmers and landholders have three options:
1. Running a project of their own, gaining the approvals and reporting on their progress.
2. Hiring a specialist to manage the reporting and administration.
3. Allow an offset aggregator to include their activity with others for trading.
Example: Farmer A chooses to undertake a project to reduce fertiliser use on the farm. Finds the relevant CFI methodology, applies to the CFI Scheme Administrator to become a recognised offsets provider and has their project approved. The farmer reduces fertiliser use (by precision application or biofertiliser substitution or other method). Each year the farmer completes a report, has it audited, then submits it to the Administrator. Credits are issued into the farmer’s account in the Offsets Registry. These are then able to be sold via a broker. The farmer can appoint an agent to handle all the adminstration. Or they can join other farmers as part of a ‘aggregation’ or pool.

No Get Rich Quick Scheme
The CFI is not a get-rich-quick scheme. Instead it is an incentive program that aims to help land managers make the shift to lower emissions practices.
The Carbon Farming Initiative first saw daylight as an election promise - which could make it a fragile prospect for ever being delivered. But when seen in context, it is a sure thing (as sure as anything can be in a 'balanced Parliament' environment)... When the CPRS was defeated, Australian consumers and corporates wanting to 'abate' their emissions were offered the voluntary market in the form of the National Carbon Offset Standard. It covers all offsets not covered in Australia's Kyoto commitment - which is mainly farm carbon offsets. Alas, forestry is covered by our Kyoto commitment and its promoters were looking forward to a bonanza under the CPRS. Instead they had the floor fall away from underneath them and the forests ceased marching across the countryside. The CFI plugs that gap for forests because it applies to both Kyoto and non-Kyoto offsets. So the CFI and the NCOS fit together.

CFI… NCOS… CPRS… ETS…?
What is the difference between the CFI and NCOS and CPRS and ETS? It's simple: The CPRS (Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme) was a proposal by the Rudd Government for a "Compliance"-based "Cap & Trade" market for emissions offsets. That is an ETS or Emissions Trading Scheme. "Compliance" means 'compulsory'. "Cap & Trade" means emitters must change their business practices to reduce their emissions to reach a target level or 'cap'.. If they cannot reach that target in the timeframe given (called a Compliance Period, eg. 2008-2012) they must purchase 'offsets' or 'permits' from emitters who exceeded their targets and earned credits by doing so, or from companies earning credits by generating renewable energy or from companies earning credits by sequestering or capturing and holding CO2 in forests. Under the Rudd CPRS scheme only 1000 companies were required to meet a target in each compliance period. They were the 1000 top emitters. They could purchase offsets from local or international companies. The NCOS (National Carbon Offset Standard) was designed to operate alongside the CPRS 'compliance' market by providing a "Voluntary" scheme. It makes available to Australian companies and consumers a source of Australian offsets that they can purchase to offset their emissions so that they can make an advertising claim that their products etc. are carbon neutral or simply to make contribution to the climate change effort by offsetting a family's emissions. The NCOS covers only domestic offsets offered to voluntary buyers. The Carbon Farming Initiative completes the set. It covers domestic and international markets, both compliance and voluntary. The only market not covered is the market that is yet to start: the CPRS or the national domestic compliance market.

Who are the buyers?
Demand for CFI credits is expected to come from foreign governments seeking to meet their Kyoto obligations, as well as companies overseas seeking to meet their obligations under national or regional schemes, such as the EU Emission Trading Scheme. CFI credits could also be attractive to companies operating in markets dominated by the voluntary market, such as Australia's traditional trade partner Japan. One important category of buyers not mentioned in the Consultation Paper are consumers overseas who are fans of the country and have a soft spot for Aussie farmers. Back at home, some companies need offsets to meet obligations where State Governments have introduced their own compliance schemes.

Methodologies: Make Your Own
A “Methodology” is a step-by-step plan for helping farmers earn offsets. There is no limit to the number of Methodologies, because the Carbon Market is a free enterprise system. Individuals are free to trade with each other, so long as they don’t break the law. The Government is developing methodologies, with the help of industry. Private project developers can also design their own.
A Methodology has the following parts:
1. A description of the activities that will either avoid emissions or capture greenhouse gasses. The carbon sinks and carbon sources touched Eg. soil, livestock.
2. How the baseline (starting point) and amounts of Greenhouse Gases removed or avoided.
3. How buyers can be reassured that the activities in one location don’t create more emissions somewhere else.
4. How the performance of the program will be measured.
5. How the project will be monitored.
The decision to approve a Methodology is taken by the Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency on the advice of the members of the Domestic Offset Integrity Committee - an independent expert panel appointed by the Government.

Integrity Standards Under Review
The Carbon Farming Initiative Consultation is just that: a Consultation. Your input is requested. The paper includes “Integrity Standards”. They are a list of ‘rules’ that are proposed to give buyers confidence that the abatement offsets they are buying aren’t just smoke and mirrors – that they are real. These rules include:

Additional - the emissions saved or extracted would not have happened without the offset, but are genuinely additional to other efforts.
Permanence – the emissions saved or extracted are not released for the period of the active life of the particular Greenhouse Gasses, eg. CO2 – 100 years
Leakage – the project does not create increases in emissions somewhere else that cancels out the inititial saving.
Measurable and verifiable – all activity must be accurately measured or estimated; each offset credit must stand for one tonne of CO2-e; auditing must be independent.
Conservative – assumptions, figures, and measurement must be conservative to avoid over-claiming.
Internationally consistent – methodologies and reporting practices aligned with those adopted by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
Supported by peer-review science – scientific evidence submitted must be ‘peer-reviewed’ which means it has been approved by other scientists in the same field as those doing the research and that it has been accepted for publication in a scientific journal.

Integrity Standards Vs The Urgency
The Integrity Standards focus on making the transaction possible by making sure the consumer is confident that they are getting what they paid for. No confidence, no market, no abatement, no sequestration of CO2. It’s as simple as that… when you look down on end of the telescope and all you can see is the transaction.
Turn the telescope around and you see the global impact of 6 million farmers changing their practices to begin drawing down billions of tonnes of CO2. Some of the world’s leading scientists say that we need as many farmers as possible sequestering as much carbon as possible in their soils and vegetation as quickly as possible because there is little chance that global warming can be held to a increase of less than 2°C without it. They are saying that the rate at which clean energy infrastructure can be built compared to the rate at which global demand for energy will grow make it now impossible to meet the 2°C target without a big soil carbon component.
Scientists, including the world’s most famous Climate Change scientist, NASA’s James Hansen, agree that renewables will not be ready to supply the world’s energy demands for up to 50 years, if then. In Smart Solutions to Climate Change, Chris Green of McGill University and Isabel Galiana look at current rates of progress and conclude that by 2050 alternative energy sources will produce less than half the power needed to stabilise carbon emissions. By 2100, the gap would be even wider.
Australian scientists point to soil carbon as the solution: “It will be next to impossible for Australia to achieve the scale of [emissions] reductions required in sufficient time to avoid dangerous climate change unless we also remove carbon from the atmosphere and store it in vegetation and soils,” the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists told the recent Victorian Inquiry into Soil Carbon. Even the CSIRO agrees Dr Michael Battaglia, Theme Leader, Sustainable Agriculture Flagship, CSIRO told the inquiry: “What [soil carbon sequestration] actually gives us is time to make those adjustments [transition from burning coal].”
Emissions reductions won’t slow down the process of climate change because they are your Grandfather’s emissions - the carbon released into the atmosphere 70 years ago - that are causing Global Warming. Luckily, we have the only process for Extracting billions of tonnes of CO2 every year for 50 years, fully deployed and scaled up, ready to start: Photosynthesis, in the form of 5.5bn hectares of farmland around the globe. Scientists such as soil carbon authority Professor Rattan Lal estimate the process can remove 3billion tonnes of CO2 annually for 50 years. He testified before the US Senate that soil carbon can be a “bridge to the future” that “buys us time”.
James Hansen and Rattan Lal agree that the world’s farmers can draw down the CO2 equivalent of 50ppm and hold it for 50 years. With the globe racing towards 400ppm, hoping to stop it at 450ppm (to hold the increase to 2°C), soil sequestration is attractive and available and relatively cheap. It would forestall the need for deeper, faster cuts in the future and it would protect the economy from damage. So why is it not activated immediately? Because people are looking down the wrong end of the telescope.

Remodelling the Integrity Standards
The Department of Climate Change & Energy Efficiency uses the current Kyoto definition of Standards such as Additionality as a starting point for innovation. The Consultation Paper makes this request: “Stakeholders are invited to comment on this approach to assessing additionality and whether alternative approaches should be considered.”
Carbon Farmers of Australia has set out its response to the Integrity Standards under the following headings:

Standard – current definition
Questions arising from current definition
Recommendations
Principles on which Standard should be redefined
Suggested Action Points

This is an important opportunity which should not be missed. Email michael@carboncoalition.com.au or a copy of our submission. Please feel free to comment on, add to, strike out, disagree with… what we have proposed.

Climate Smart Agriculture at Cancun

While AGDAY 2009 at Copenhagen was focused on ‘a special arrangment for Agriculture’ based on its ‘specificity’ (its cobenefits), in 2010 at Cancun these cobenefits are being integrated into planning. For example, integrated farm forestry shows promise. “Enhanced agroforestry schemes in Africa have benefitted the environment, farmers and food security. In Niger over 4.8 million hectares of millet and sorghum are being grown in agro-forests and in Malawi maize yields have increased by up to 280%,” says the Summary of the Agriculture and Rural Development Day. These are examples of what is called “Climate smart agriculture” or practical solutions for triple wins (co-benefits): adaptation, mitigation and food security. But where was the driver for this change – the market? It’s there, but it has to share the stage with many other agendas. “Policy makers cannot afford to neglect … the potential for carbon sequestration through agriculture. Ground work is needed to develop a framework to build confidence and attract resources. There is a need to use a range of instruments to create incentives for farmers, including insurance, credit and direct and indirect payments. Policies should ensure multiple benefits and access to markets to increase farmer income while improving mitigation, for example by more efficient use of inputs… Increased investments in climate smart institutions, policies, programmes and incentives should be harmonised at all levels to assist in implementing mitigation and carbon sequestration measures that benefit farmers.”
Australia is world standard in having gaps in the data: among the “significant knowledge gaps” facing global agriculture is listed “the potential of carbon sequestration” and the need is for “interdisciplinary research that draws on the best of traditional knowledge and science to achieve more sustainable food and farming systems.”
We call it “Collaborative Science”.
Meanwhile, over at the main stadium where ssues such as emissions reductions targets and renewable energy occupy all the time of the big players, smaller issues like food and water are being noticed: “UNFCCC negotiations now recognise the
importance of food security, adaptation and productivity enhancements for agriculture…”
The Agday meeting – attended by 400 delegates from diverse organisatons - declared the following actions urgent if first order agricultural issues are to be integrated into the global action plan: 1. “Fast track financing” to support agriculture adaptation and mitigation activities.
2. Action on food security must be included in any post
2012 agreements. 3. Forestry programs (like REDD+) should recognise the links between agriculture and forestry, and promote sustainable agriculture intensification and reduce deforestation, while improving rural livelihoods. 4. Trading mechanisms such as the CDM need to include agriculture.
The Communique ended with a plea for partnerships between public and private sector, especially farmers, and civil society organizations. “Building bridges between scientific and traditional knowledge is the essential starting point for success.”

Was Cancun's Agday hijacked?

Why do we have Agday at Cancun? Agriculture has to stage it’s own day because its not included in the official program, even though there have been 16 of these Conferences of Parties. There has been one major shift from last year’s Agday. That green ideology dominates the organizations involved is obvious by the way the Summary of the Agriculture and Rural Development Day uses the WWF and Animal Liberation’s trick – in the now discredited FAO report “Livestock’s Long Shadow” - that ‘proved’ that cattle were the world’s most destructive animal by making them responsible for deforestration of the Amazon. This time it’s all of Agriculture in the frame: “Over a third of direct global emissions is due to agriculture and other land use change…” Other land use includes deforestration – which is as much a timber industry activity, and there is no attempt to calculate the amount of emissions sequestered by farmers. By this sleight of hand, Agriculture becomes a net emitter: “It is estimated that agriculture has the potential to sequester up to 90% of agriculture’s total emissions.” And so we return to that old song; Agriculture is the problem, not the solution. Handicap agriculture with deforestation for whatever purpose and it's easy to paint a picture with only one colour.

Highlights of Draft Design of Carbon Farming Initiative, Part 3

Unlike most markets around the world, the CFI is legislated. Its reason is they want to 'provide long term certainty to participants': The fundamental principle behind the Government's approach is this: Buyers are the most important participants because unless they feel confident that they are getting what they paid for, they won't buy. For this reason, offets must meet the most stringent standards... "To underpin the environmental integrity and market value of carbon credits, abatement will need to meet internationally consistent integrity standards." But if the Integrity Principles make it too hard for farmers they won't change their land management practices or maintain the change if they have already made it. The Scheme has 2 Design Principles that are in contradiction. Design Principle 1: "Ensuring environmental integrity - credits that represent genuine and additional emissions abatement will have a higher market value and help address climate change." Design Principle 2: "Enabling broad participation - clear and simple rules will keep administrative costs low and ensure that farmers.. can benefit from the scheme." The contradiction: The Government will not achieve broad participation if it insists on a strictly by-the-book Kyoto approach to issues such as Additionality and Permanence. The barrier to purchase is not ultimately fear of being short changed. It is ignorance of the urgency of the need to get every farmer in Australia and the world to capture and hold as much carbon in their soils as possible, for as long as possible because, unless they do, the chance of limiting global warming to an increase of 2°C is gone. (See the facts at Only Soil Carbon Can Keep The Lid On 2°C)

Highlights of Draft Design of Carbon Farming Initiative, Part 2

What is the difference between the CFI and NCOS and CPRS and ETS? It's simple: The CPRS (Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme) was a proposal by the Rudd Government for a "Compliance"-based "Cap & Trade" market for emissions offsets. That is an ETS or Emissions Trading Scheme. "Compliance" means 'compulsory'. "Cap & Trade" means emitters must change their business practices to reduce their emissions to reach a target level or 'cap'.. If they cannot reach that target in the timeframe given (called a Compliance Period) they must purchase 'offsets' or 'permits' from emitters who exceeded their targets and earned credits by doing so, or from companies earning credits by generating renewable energy or from companies earning credits by sequestering or capturing and holding CO2 in forests. Under the Rudd CPRS scheme only 1000 companies were required to meet a target in each compliance period. They were the 1000 top emitters. They could purchase offsets from local or international companies. The NCOS (National Carbon Offset Standard) was designed to operate alongside the CPRS 'compliance' market by providing a "Voluntary" scheme. It makes available to Australian companies and consumers a source of Australian offsets that they can purchase to offset their emissions so that they can make an advertising claim that their products etc. are carbon neutral or simply to make contribution to the climate change effort by offsetting a family's emissions. The NCOS covers only domestic offsets offered to voluntary buyers. The Carbon Farming Initiative completes the set. It covers domestic and international markets, both compliance and voluntary. The only market not covered is the market that is yet to start: the CPRS or the national domestic compliance market.

Who are the buyers?

Demand for CFI credits is expected to come from foreign governments seeking to meet their Kyoto obligations, as well as companies overseas seeking to meet their obligations under national or regional schemes, such as the EU Emission Trading Scheme. CFI credits could also be attractive to companies operating in markets dominated by the voluntary market, such as Australia's traditional trade partner Japan. One important category of buyers not mentioned in the Consultation Paper are consumers overseas who are fans of the country and have a soft spot for Aussie farmers. Back at home, some companies need offsets to meet obligations where State Governments have introduced their own compliance schemes.

Highlights of Draft Design of Carbon Farming Initiative, Part 1

The Carbon Farming Initiative first saw daylight as an election promise - which could make it a fragile prospect for ever being delivered. But when seen in context, it is a sure thing (as sure as anything can be in a 'balanced Parliament' environment)... When the CPRS crashed and burned, Australian consumers and corporates wanting to 'abate' their emissions were offered the voluntary market in the form of the National Carbon Offset Standard. It covers all offsets not covered in Australia's Kyoto commitment - which is mainly farm carbon offsets. Alas, forestry is covered by our Kyoto commitment and its promoters were looking forward to a bonanza under the CPRS. Instead they had the floor fall away from underneath them and the forests ceased marching across the countryside. The CFI plugs that gap for forests because it applies to both Kyoto and non-Kyoto offsets. So the CFI and the NCOS fit together.

The scheme covers reforestation and revegetation; reduced methane emissions from livestock; reduced fertiliser emissions; manure management; reduced emissions and/or increased sequestration in agricultural soils (soil carbon); savanna fire management; avoided deforestation; burning of stubble/crop residue; reduced emissions from rice cultivation; and reduced emissions from landfill waste.

The scheme is scheduled to start on 1 July, 2011.

Farmers to shape Carbon Farming Initiative

Carbon Farmers of Australia and the Carbon Coalition were sent an advance copy of the consultation paper on the Carbon Farming Initiative, for discussion at a stakeholder consultation meeting in Canberra on Friday 19 November. “This consultation paper is the first step in a dialogue with stakeholders about the CFI. It describes and seeks stakeholder feedback on a range of options in relation to the design of the scheme,” said Shayleen Thompson, First Assistant Secretary, Land Division, Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency. [PIC: Shayleen Thompson met Tom Nicholas, chairman of Healthy Soils Australia at the consultation.]
Submissions are due by 21 January 2011. “The meeting on Friday will provide an opportunity to work through and explain the content of the paper, and respond to any questions, which may assist your organisation to understand and consider the options and provide feedback to the government.” Also at the stakeholder consultation was Maya Stewart-Fox, Director, New Policy, who spoke at the Carbon Farming Conference, and we also met Rohan Nelson, Director, Carbon Farming Initiative. The attitude of the Department was genuinely consultitative… We detected a desire to make the CFI work and a belief that farmers – far from being told what to do - could be a useful source of ideas for what the Department should do. [PIC:Meeting the Minister's Senior Advisor Peter Nicholas.] We also found the same approach in Minister Greg Combet’s Senior Advisor Peter Nicholas who we met last month at the Carbon Expo in Melbourne. He also attended the meeting in Canberra and told us that the Minister was expecting a lot of ideas from the sector.

Australian Farm Offsets to Japan?

The Voluntary Market is not a side issue in Japan where companies are buying so many offsets they could enable the Japanese Government to meet its obligations. The Japanese Government sent two senior carbon market analysts from Mitsubishi Bank on a world tour of countries that could produce offsets that Japanese companies can purchase. Mr Hemmi Tatsushi and Ms Miyuki Konuma from Mitsubishi UFJ Research & Consulting, Environmental Policy Consulting Dept. We Mr Hemmi and Ms Konuma as part of a delegation from Sustainable Business Australia, which we joined recently.

Coal industry predicts opportunity for soils?

The International Energy Agency's annual World Energy Outlook (WEO) says that the major governments’ commitment to a 2°C temperature target would mean coal demand will have to peak by 2020, and by 2035 will have dropped to 2003 levels.
Under a 2°C scenario, coal and oil’s 46% share of global electricity generation would fall to 22% in 2030. The share captured by non-hydro renewables would go from 3% to 20%.
Writing in Climate Spectator, Paul Gilding says the 2°C is widely respected: "It is the line in the sand scientists have drawn and said, if we go past it we face catastrophic system-wide risk. While some scientists argue that number is too high and too risky, none of any consequence argue it is too low. That’s why the governments of China, India, Europe and the USA have all agreed, along with many global corporates, that 2°C is the line we can’t cross."
SOil CARBON is the Solution.

Good News: Soil beats coal hands down for emissions

Two people who deserve special mention for their effective advocacy of The Soil Carbon Solution are Tony Lovell from Soil Carbon Australia and John White from Ignite Energy. John has welter of powerful facts in his arsenal, some of which we list here:

1. There is now more carbon in the atmosphere and in oceans from degraded landscape, namely soils, than has been emitted by the burning of fossil fuels since the the dawn of the Industrial Revolution.
2. In the last 200-odd years, the amount of carbon lost from soils is estimated at around 500 billion tons, while the amount created by fossil fuel emissions is estimated at around 360 billion tons – making the focus on fossil fuels emissions as the predominant cause of climate change, arguably, misplaced.
3. In Australia, scientists have estimated that soil carbon lost since European settlement, by traditional grazing and cropping on the 500 million hectares of Australian rangelands and farmlands, could be as much as 150-200 billion tons. This is equivalent to around 300 years of Australia’s current annual greenhouse gas emissions.
4. Meanwhile, the world’s forests and oceans currently take up about 40 per cent of annual human CO2 emissions, of around 30 billion tons a year.
5. A reason for this shortfall is that there are over three billion hectares of managed grazing and cropping lands on the planet, most of which are now well below their saturation soil carbon capacity.
6. These lands are now net emitters of greenhouse gases.
7. A 0.1 per cent increase in soil carbon in these agricultural lands could reduce atmospheric CO2 levels by around 4 ppm.
8. A 0.1 per cent increase in soil carbon on just 10 per cent of Australia’s cropping and grazing lands, each year, would offset all of Australia’s current annual greenhouse gas emissions.
9. Professor Ross Garnaut has called biosequestration “potentially Australia’s most important contribution to the global effort to reduce greenhouse gases.”
10. The International Federation of Agricultural Producers says “economic incentives are needed to enable farmers to implement more sustainable agricultural practices. Carbon credit systems would reward farmers for their contribution to climate mitigation through carbon sequestering activities.”
11. In July 2009 the Portuguese government introduced a soil carbon offsets scheme based on dryland pasture improvement compliant with Article 3.4 of the Kyoto Protocol. The Portuguese data shows that under sown perennial pasture soil organic matter increased by around 0.21 per cent per annum over a 10 year period.
12. There are now hundreds of farms in Australia that have converted to biological farming and fertilising systems, and planned grazing techniques that, while being more profitable, successfully and sustainably sequester CO2 in the soils as soil carbon.
13. Little has been done so far by our science institutes to study such success stories.
14. The Australian government should ... encourage every farmer in Australia to adopt farm practices that build soil carbon.
15. Biological carbon capture use and storage (Bio-CCS) needs to become common practice for Australia's agriculture industry. Not only would it mean a huge reduction in Australia's carbon emissions, it has the great advantage that it uses CO2 to deliver useful products and better environmental, employment and health outcomes, at very low-cost, with positive GDP impacts, and potentially at huge-scale in the near-term.

Bravo John White.

Food Security Action Fund Miserly Compared to "Clean Coal"

Reuters reports a global fund of $20 million a year for 10 years has been established to research how to feed the world population in the face of worsening floods and droughts. By 2050, global "potential to produce food" could decline by 5 to 10 percent, after an average increase through 2020, according to Andy Jarvis, an agriculture policy expert at the International Center for Tropical Agriculture, based in Colombia. The program will use an Australian climate model to look at how rising temperatures and rainfall changes affect 50 major crops worldwide including sorghum, millet, sweet potato, wheat, rice and maize. Climate models point to accelerating declines in production of rain-fed wheat worldwide of 2.2 percent by 2020, 4 percent by 2050 and 18.6 percent by 2080, unless climate change is curbed or effective adaptive measures are put in place, scientists told reporters.
Maintaining adequate food production in the face of climate pressures may require some societies to switch their staple crops, if varieties more tolerant of drought, floods and pests cannot be successfully developed.
The amount of funding applied to this project compared with the billions spent on coal technology is revealing of distorted priorities. (Source: Climate Spectator)

CARBON FARMING CONFERENCE SLIDES NOW AVAILABLE

The slide presentations from the Carbon Farming Conference have been posted on the conference website at http://carbonfarmingconference.com.au/Conference/KeySpeakers.html Dr Jeff Baldock (pictured) reported on progress of the Soil Carbon Research Program.

DOIC Member "Gets It"

Mark Dangerfield is a member of the DOIC – the Government’s Domestic Offset Integrity Committee. He is an experienced forest project developer. He also speaks sense about soil carbon, in an article in climate Spectator in September, before he was appointed:
“There is a consensus among climate scientists that the net greenhouse gas emission reductions we must achieve to keep warming below dangerous levels cannot happen without the agricultural sector. They are right, it can’t.“There are three reasons for this assertion. The first is that emission reductions from energy efficiency, mitigation and renewable projects will struggle to keep pace with ever-growing emissions from global energy demand. Mitigation projects in energy sectors will slow emission rates but leave legacy emissions in the atmosphere.
“The second reason follows from a need to deal with this legacy. Smart agricultural and forestry practices can suck back CO2 and store it in vegetation and soil – so-called biosequestration. In Australia the sequestration potential in agriculture alone is 100 million tonnes of CO2 emissions (CO2e) per annum, or a quarter of Australian anthropogenic emissions with the bonus that soil with more carbon in it is far better for production that soil with less.”
“The third reason, and the big one, is land clearing…” He advocates ‘Improved Forestry management’ – actively maintaining carbon stocks in stands of trees as they revolve through a lifecycle to harvesting. We believe that arrangement could form part of an integrated farm carbon plan, in the right circmstances.

Soil carbon credits in Kenya

Small-holder farmers in Kenya are involved in the first soil carbon project in Africa. The Kenya Agricultural Carbon Project iaims to improve food security, help address climate change, and improve the livelihoods of rural dwellers.
“The Kenya Agricultural Carbon Project is not only the first project that sells soil carbon credits in Africa, it is also paving the way for a new approach to carbon accounting methodologies,” says Joëlle Chassard, Manager of the Carbon Finance Unit at the World Bank.
The Emission Reductions Purchase Agreement (ERPA),. adds the benefits of carbon finance to a sustainable agricultural land management project that increases the productivity of the Kenyan farmers and also sequesters carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Developed with the support of the World Bank, the project generates carbon credits which are sold to the Bank-administered BioCarbon Fund. The direct benefit to local communities is over US$350,000 with an initial payment of US$80,000 to be made in the first year, 2011.
The Project, implemented by the Swedish non-governmental organization Vi Agroforestry, is located on 45,000 hectares in the Nyanza Province and Western Province of Kenya. There, small-holder farmers and small-scale business entrepreneurs are trained in diverse cropland management techniques such as covering crops, crop rotation, compost management, and agro-forestry. These practices increase the yield of the land and generate additional sources of income for the farmers through the payment for environmental services in the form of carbon credits.
“The development of a new methodology for carbon sequestration in agriculture has great direct benefits for the farmers in Kenya and tremendous potential for scaling up.
The BioCarbon Fund purchases emission reductions from afforestation and reforestation projects under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), as well as from land-use sector projects outside the CDM. These include projects that increase carbon sequestration in soils through improved agriculture practices. The BioCarbon Fund develops methodologies and tools that are in the public domain