CarbonSimplicity

• The Opposition may want agriculture excluded from the ETS, but the nation’s top climate scientists are calling on the Federal Government to include soil and vegetation in Australia’s emissions trading scheme.

Few other countries have recognised soil's effective capacity to store carbon

A report released by the Wentworth group of scientists says that unless this is done, it will be “next to impossible” to achieve the emissions cuts needed to avoid the worst effects of climate change.

Wentworth Group scientist Peter Cosier says institutional structures need to be put in place to increase carbon storage in soils.

“Our analysis shows that if we increase the amount of carbon stored in vegetation and soils across our landscape, it has the potential not only to make profound contribution to meeting our carbon pollution reduction targets, but it also presents a unique opportunity to address a raft of other seemingly intractable environmental problems,” he said.

“In other words, we can use soil and vegetation carbon to help address climate change but we can get win-win outcomes if we design our institutional structures properly.

“At this stage we don’t have those structures in place because we don’t have a terrestrial carbon market, but if we do introduce a CPRS, and if the Government does extend the ability for polluters to offset their pollution by storing carbon in soil and vegetation, then we will create a very large terrestrial carbon market.”

Australia ‘uniquely placed’

Mr Cosier says up to a quarter of Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions could be offset in soil and vegetation over the next four decades.

He says few other countries have recognised soil’s effective capacity to store carbon.

“The analysis that we have looked at which follows on some work by CSIRO for the Queensland Government is that if Australia were to capture just 15 per cent of the biophysical capacity of our landscape to store carbon, you would offset the equivalent of 25 per cent of Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions every year for the next 40 years,” he said.

“Some governments have recognised it. For example, the legislation going through the United States does recognise soil and vegetation offsets as their part of their legislation.

“Australia is rather uniquely placed because we are a relatively small economy with a large landscape. The contribution that terrestrial carbon can make to our carbon pollution reduction targets is actually far greater relative to other nations.”

He says utilising the storage could pump billions into the economy.

“If we were to achieve capture 15 per cent of the potential that CSIRO estimate is possible, we could potentially create a terrestrial carbon market in Australia of between $3 billion and $6 billion per annum every year for the next 40 years,” he said.

“The actual market created would depend of course on the size of the reduction target the Government commits to.”

But questions remain over how farmers can effectively delegate land for carbon storage.

Mr Cosier says a balance must be struck between storage and food production.

“Well, at the moment the CPRS does allow offsets into carbon forestry as it is called, Kyoto compliant forestry,” he said.

“If farmers choose to, they would be able to use some of those opportunities to plant carbon forests or biodiversity plantings if they chose to on parts of their property and that would give them a new income stream.

“There is a risk that if we don’t properly regulate the market, we could also see large areas of agricultural land taken out of food production and converted into these carbon forests, so we need a balance.

“But if we get the balance right, the potential benefits to agriculture in terms of new income streams, the benefits for restoring degraded landscapes and biodiversity conservation are enormous.”

source: abc.net.au