Hoping to get a discussion going on carbon farming and what it really means. Correct me if I am wrong – under the previous Gillard Govt carbon farmers would have had the carbon tax price of ~$24? per tonne to price their sequestration efforts.
Under the Abbott Govt the Carbon Tax is intended to be scrapped – if the Senate will eventually vote for repeal. So the previous Govt concept is to be replaced by an auction system where carbon farmers will bid a price that they will sequester carbon – after submitting a scheme for their property and having it ticked off of course. The Govt hopes this system will lead to the lowest cost to taxpayers to get a certain quota of emissions reductions.
Is that basically it?
So carbon farming is really a reafforestation scheme for marginal lands. With the owner being paid so much per tonne of increased carbon accumulating on and under the land. What could farmers realistically expect to earn by letting their farms “return to nature”?
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I have written on the failure of the Henbury carbon farming project – but despite trying FOI to two Govts have never found out exact reason why Henbury failed.
Does anybody know about carbon farming projects in their regions?
Any success stories?
There are no success stories, nor likely to be. Carbon is difficult to sequester and even more difficult to measure. Water is what is needed to sequester carbon which makes the government (ALP) backed project in Central Australia a couple of years ago where the RM Williams group sold some stations towards this, one of the more ludicrous ideas in captivity. Measurement is the difficult thing though, and temperate forest carbon measurement methodology has a precision factor which ranges from 50 – 120% and in tropical forests from 50 – 250%.
Measuring carbon accumulation in the soil is more accurate but much more expensive and it would take a carbon prices of $300-$400/tonne if using the current available (and mooted) methodology to make it any sort of a worthwhile exercise. Of course carbon accumulation is only possible in rainfall environments > 500 mm/year and it would be much economically profitable to conventionally farm it to gain the most value from it, so I can’t see that as being much of a contributor to carbon farming either in the future.
Carbon accumulation in the soil will benefit crop and pasture production though and all farmers should be striving to improve their soil carbon levels if just for their own production benefit, so it is not totally a zero sum game.
You would have to wonder how long it will take for the smart vultures to swoop on this.
Any landholder with property tied/locked up in this sort of scheme will find themselves with a new style of value added asset to insure. I am sure the the insurance industry risk assessors will view a combustable asset appropriately & set premiums accordingly for a profit.
Further, my understanding is that if fire reaches your property & assets from your neighbours & subsequently damages your assets, you claim against that neighbour’s insurance. As a result even the neighbour’s insurance is liable to increase. That will be good for the rural community- not.
Now even if a loss through fire was to occur through a lightning strike or act of God, a lot of accounted, bought & paid for sequestered carbon would as a result be returned to the atmosphere. This being the case, will the financial beneficiaries of the scheme have to refund the premiums they have collected?
Will that have to be assessed & taxed under any future taxation covering rural activities? There could be a whole lot of green fascists running round with HiVis vests, satpones, JSAs & clipboards on a gig like this – all power & no responsibility- choice!
Will the insurance industry be looking for an additional policy & premium to cover this?
I guess we will have to wait until Tony Jones has Sarah Hansen-Young & Greg
Hunt back on to explain.
I was sent this advert from Cobar – public meeting 12 Sep 2013
Seems 400mm annual rain would be a fair year in Cobar.
www.bom.gov.au/jsp/ncc/climate_averages/rainfall/index.jsp
In Northern Australia, the favoured means ‘carbon farming’ is controlled burns to reduce serious bushfires. The carbon sequestration occurs as this results in more and larger trees.
Grasses and trees have been in evolutionary struggle for the last few tens of millions of years, with grasses having evolved to use fire to limit the spread of trees. If these fire suppression practices persist we will turn northern savannah grasslands into forest profoundly affecting the whole biosphere.
theconversation.com/savanna-burning-carbon-pays-for-conservation-in-northern-australia-12185
In the south of WA, forests grow well beyond the 500mm rainfall limit. The Great Southern Woodland gets around 300mm.
Remember the 1992 CSIRO paper by R.M.Gifford which said –
www.publish.csiro.au/paper/BT9920527.htm
“The present modelled rate of net sequestration is of a similar magnitude to CO2 emissions from continental fossil fuel burning and land clearing combined.”
I have Figures from Gifford 1992 here –
www.warwickhughes.com/blog/?p=2725
Philip, you are correct, forests in lower rainfall areas can accumulate carbon although it tends to be slow and difficult to measure accurately and at a level and timeframe which would make it relatively ineffective. The > 500 mm regions I was referring to was for carbon soil accumulation by annual and perennial crop and pasture spp. to a level that could be considered significant. Carbon can be accumulated in more arid regions under crop or pasture conditions, but once again is a much more extended process as to make it virtually worthless.
Reality of European carbon market now. Chart of “Certified Emission Reductions” current price 20 Feb 2014 E0.33 = AU$0.5034 – compared to the Gillard carbon tax of +$20.
If this means that the financial incentives to farm carbon could be as little as one fortieth of that assumed under the GreenLabor Govt Carbon Farming Initiative (CFI) – then surely carbon farming is dead for now.
Sydney Morning Herald now reporting – UN carbon market trailblazer flaring out – discussing the collapse in price of – UN Certified Emissions Reductions
www.smh.com.au/business/carbon-economy/un-carbon-market-trailblazer-flaring-out-20140312-34l2r.html#ixzz2vhLvkALd
make the above chart for yourself here –
www.theice.com/marketdata/reports/ReportCenter.shtml#report/94
I fail to see how carbon farming can pay without a reliable and much higher price on carbon.
Local Cobar newspaper reports –
Carbon farming is now paying off – 12 March 2014
www.cobarweekly.com.au/public_html/public_html/120314/article4CarbonFarming120314.html
Presumably this is a Commonwealth scheme feeding this.
www.cleanenergyregulator.gov.au/Carbon-Pricing-Mechanism/Pages/default.aspx
If anybody can understand this – please translate in plain English –
it looks to me like the ex GreenLabor Govt scheme has been superceded by the Abbott Govt Direct Action scheme – as shown by this screen shot of the Carbon pricing mechanism webpage.
As one how sat on UNCTAD UNFCCC helping set up IPCC from 1995 writing the Kyoto protocol the Labor Government and alas John Hewson fail to comprehend if the Government sets up carbon trading it must be to UNFCCC offset storage for 100 yrs. The UN study confirmed there is no non polluting energy on the horizon. Coal is de facto volcanoes. The nox sox emission via the Sun’s radiation become life sustaining Nitrates Sulfates for all living matter to breathe or sequester. The hard science is, 300 years of anthropogenic clearing of deserts still remains the prime source of CO2e. As ASIC and ASX will confirm there is more that 150 Farming Families during Labor’s tenure and many more investors bankrupted by planted out trees to sequester CO2. Trees, rice, cotton, most grains, take biomass carbon and elements from the soil not air.
The Carbon tax was clearly a money grab from industries, mining, energy companies and public. The nation cannot allow any further extension of the unscientific ill informed (CFI) carbon Farming Initiative and continue witnessing Farmers going broke growing trees. Yes Trees have a serious function but only when soil is being grown to support growth.
PM Abbott wrote Direct Action plan (Adelaide Review June 1995) to engage 200,000 direct in a master planting operation, and, indirectly engaging 800,000 jobs. Australia can again become the World Farm and add-on industries by 2020 but, to start cancel the Carbon Tax consolidated grab. Well planned Kyoto is self funding to build a new national based dollar exporting business. Equally well planned the sale of offset carbon sinks and indeed serious crops and livestock growing the Labor debt can be reversed well before 2020 Robert Vincin