Australia’s dairy farmers have been given a cold shower on Climate Change by Dairy Australia. “It doesn’t matter if you believe in Climate Change or not, because it is now a major political and social force that is and will continue to impact on all industries, including dairy,” it says on its website. Many in the farm community have been convinced by those who deny the science of Climate Change. “The physical reality of Climate Change remains is still debatable for some. This will continue to be the case because it is very hard to differentiate small changes to the average climate from the background of large and poorly understood climate variability. However, ‘belief’ in Climate Change is no longer relevant because the very idea of Climate Change, backed up by clearly more volatile weather events, has created its own, overwhelming social and economic momentum. ‘Climate Change’ is fundamentally changing everything from the behaviour of Governments to consumer choices. It has become one of the critical lenses through which every decision must pass – how individuals and industries react will fundamentally their future resilience and competitive advantage.”

Hysterical Predictions

“Farmers need policies that remove obstacles to implementing climate-smart agriculture, and create synergies with alternative technologies and practices.”
Among the millions of words being uttered at COP 17 this week, these are the most potent. They come from the World Bank.

The Bank believes it is time that the 194 nations attending the Durban meeting got serious about Agriculture – the life and death issue:

‘The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) places a high priority on agriculture. Article 2 of the treaty states that the “stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations .......... should be achieved within a time-frame sufficient .....to ensure that food production is not threatened......” It is thus surprising that a detailed treatment of agriculture has yet to enter any of the Agreements. The negotiat¬ing text proposing an agriculture work program under the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA) was already available for COP 15 in Copenhagen but has yet to be adopted.

‘Addressing agriculture is critical to achieving global climate change goals, both in terms of adaptation and mitigation. Agriculture will be significantly impacted by climate change, and is crucial for global food security, rural development and poverty alleviation. It can also contribute significantly to meeting mitiga¬tion targets. Food security, adaptation and mitigation can and should be dealt with in an integrated manner — thus the need to incorporate agriculture in future climate change agreements.

‘Key deliverables for COP 17 include:

• An agriculture work program under SBSTA that covers both adaptation and mitigation. It should be informed by science to enhance the role of agri¬culture in achieving synergies between adaptation, mitigation and food security
• Text that makes crops and pasture eligible under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) of the Kyoto Protocol

‘Placing agriculture in a global agreement would help provide a policy framework for fully incorporating agriculture into adaptation and mitigation strategies. Further work on numerous technical issues (e.g. moni¬toring methods, identification of new technologies and approaches) and institutional issues (e.g. how to make sure benefits reach poor farmers) would be stimulated by such an agreement.’

There have been 16 glorified gabfests called Conference of Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change – where the leaders of the world meet to talk about saving civilisation from environmental destruction - and at not one of them has the ability of the world to feed itself been considered as part of the main agenda. And still, at COP 17 in Durban, 20,000 delegates will discuss every trivial detail of an imaginary accounting system for emissions that has a death wish, but Agriculture is relegated to a little side event. 

Nothing demonstrates the distorted values of the Kyotocrats more dramatically than their refusal to give their attention to the centrality of food production to the human tragedy of Climate Change and the potential solution that resides in the soil beneath our feet. Urbanites, most of them, suffering from the Supermarket Delusion, they see Agriculture merely as an inconvenient source of emissions, not as the difference between peace and war as mass migration of millions in search of food and water create conflict.

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“We need agriculture that can contribute to sequestering green house gas emissions and capturing carbon in the soil, agriculture that can move from being part of the problem - agriculture currently emits about 14 percent of global green house emissions and indirectly another 17 percent - to part of the solution,” says Andrew Steer, Special Envoy for Climate Change at the World Bank.. He calls it Climate-Smart Agriculture. It is “agriculture that will strengthen food security, adaptation and mitigation where farmers use proven conservation agriculture techniques together with innovative technologies such as drought and flood tolerant crops, improved early warning systems and risk insurance, We need climate –smart agriculture, which can provide a triple win for farmers by creating higher yields and increasing climate resilience, while reducing greenhouse gas emissions and storing carbon in plants and the soil.” Last month, leading scientists from 38 countries agreed. 

Gathering in the Dutch town of Wageningen, to share research findings on this phenomenon, they were united in calling on the negotiators in Durban to recognize and support the potential that Climate-Smart Agriculture offers. In September, the Government of South Africa hosted a meeting of African Agricultural Ministers who noted the crucial opportunity of a "triple win" for African farmers, and called for support from the international community to incorporate Climate-Smart Agriculture into existing regional and national agriculture plans.

Read more.

The first soil carbon methodology submitted to the Domestic Offset Integrity Committee (DOIC) has reached first base! Submitted only 8 weeks ago, it has been analysed and an issues paper written in response. We should get it in a few days. Stay tuned...

Read more.

If you can believe yesterday's Australian Financial Review, the Carbon Farming Initiative will be rorted like the Pink Batts scheme; will not deliver genuine reductions in carbon emissions; and will put at risk the brands of any emitters who buy its offsets. It claims that this is because the CFI will not verify the actions of farmers that earn offsets and will allow farmers to claim offsets for actions they would have taken anyway because it would cost too much to prevent them.


These remarks are astonishing. Their source is an article in the Australian Financial Review based on an interview with a member of the the body responsible for ensuring that none of the things mentioned above happen. Rob Fowler is a member of the interim Domestic Offsets Integrity Committee (DOIC). The role of the DOIC is to assess offsets methodologies and work with the people putting them forward to build the safeguards into the system. The checking - physical or otherwise - is dictated by the DOIC. It has the last word.


We applaud Rob's stated aim of not burdening farmers with the expense of a what he calls a 'rort-free' system, but he seems to be saying that the operation of the CFI is impossible because of the cost of measurement and verification. This is an old objection. It overstates the problem and underestimates the impact of innovation on reducing costs. But the Government, while it will be less than impressed with the way he raised the issue, must urgently address Rob's concerns to restore confidence in the CFI.


If those of us spending thousands of hours working for free on methodologies to give farmers access to offsets can't be confident in the integrity of the process, this could deter further submissions and make Rob's prediction self-fulfilling. We are sure he wouldn't want that.

Could soil carbon sequestration absorb the world’s fossil fuel emissions? They have the capacity, according to soil scientist Margaret Torn from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab). co-author Schmidt, M. et al., Persistence of soil organic matter as an ecosystem property, in: Nature , 6 October, 2011. 

“The fluxes between soil carbon in the form of organic matter and carbon in the atmosphere as CO2 are very large. A small change in carbon cycling can have a huge affect on atmospheric CO2 concentrations, and therefore a huge feedback to climate change. As an example, a ten percent change in the soil carbon flux to the atmosphere would roughly double the net CO2 input. And if soils released only 0.3 percent of their carbon stores, it would equal year 2010 fossil fuel emissions.” Is the reverse true? If we were able to increase the soil’s store of carbon by 0.3% that we could absorb the world’s entire fossil fuel emissions?

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Do the Chinese know something that we don't? Climate Spectator reports that China's quick adoption of clean energy will help it exceed emissions-to-GDP targets agreed last year, said scientists with Climate Action Tracker. "China is set to not only meet its Cancun Agreement emissions intensity pledge, but is likely to go beyond it," the independent research group said, referring to the December 2010 global climate change accord.

Read more.

BREAKING NEWS

KEYNOTE SPEAKER ANNOUNCEMENT

Land management’s quiet American revolution

Keynote speaker at this year’s Carbon Farming Conference, Courtney White of the Quivira Coalition, is leading a revolution in land management in America. The former environmental activist abandoned confrontation with ranchers to forge a new community model for creating healthy ‘working landscapes’ by building bridges between ranchers, conservationists, public land managers, scientists and others. In 1997, with two farmers, he co-founded the Quivira Coalition in New Mexico which uses education and collaboration to promote progressive public and private land stewardship. More recently he has been focussed on ‘carbon ranching’ and the new agrarian movement (healthy soil, healthy food, healthy people) in the USA. Mr White is visiting Australia to meet ‘carbon farmers’ and healthy soils activists. Australia is the first country in the world to legislate a carbon offset scheme for farming projects, at a national level.

Courtney will address the topic: “The Carbon Puzzle: Reassembling Land and Livelihoods” at the Carbon Farming Conference (28-29 September, 2011, in Dubbo NSW). He will share his experiences at the forefront of change with the Quivira Coalition. During the Spanish Colonial era in the South Western states, mapmakers used the word 'Quivira' to designate unknown territory beyond the frontier; it was also a term for an elusive golden dream.

Mr White’s writing has appeared in numerous publications, including Farming, Acres Magazine, Rangelands, and the Natural Resources Journal. His essay “The Working Wilderness: a Call for a Land Health Movement” was published by Wendell Berry in 2005 in his collection of essays titled "The Way of Ignorance."  In 2008, Island Press published Courtney’s book Revolution on the Range: the Rise of a New Ranch in the American West. He co-edited, with Dr. Rick Knight, Conservation for a New Generation, also published by Island Press in 2008. 

Free Barista Bar Coffee!

There will be a special networking lounge area with complimentary ‘real’ coffee from a Barista Bar. This coffee service is sponsored by the Environmental Registry and the lounge area is furnished by Harvey Norman Dubbo.

Who Will Be The Carbon Converters?

Not every farmer will want to get involved in trading farm carbon offsets. In fact, at least 25% have already decided not to, according to a recent survey by the Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation (RIRDC). The study, called Decisions Made By Farmers That Relate To Climate Change, found there are three types of response to the need to change practices: ignore it (26%), want to do something but can’t afford it (19%), want to do something but need support (55%). This last group - called ‘Cash-poor long-term adaptors’ - tend to believe Climate Change is real and man-made and that we have a responsibility to do something about it. 

They are information seekers and intend to farm more sustainably if they can get support. They tend to have larger farms (average 5000 ha) than the other groups (1600 ha and 2700 ha), and they rely less on off-farm income. They average 55 years of age, their health is good and they feel up to handling change. So, the majority of farmers (74%) want to change to meet the challenge of Climate Change, but need financial support to do so. That is what farm carbon offsets from the Carbon Farming Initiative and the $1.8bn in adjustment funding from the Carbon Tax are designed to deliver to farmers. Now that’s something you won’t hear from rural politicians or regional press outlets.

How the market works (for Indians)

It is hoped that next year it will be Australian farmers, but Carbon offsets paid to farmers in India are being used to offset the emissions generated by this year’s Carbon Farming Conference. The land-based offset credits will be derived from sugar cane used to generate energy. Ben Stuart, Director of Carbon Trading Exchange said “We wanted to demonstrate to farmers what it could mean for them by stepping in to this market. Through the simple offsetting of an event we can show how land-based projects can make money. 

Businesses will be able to buy CFI credits in Australia to offset their own carbon footprint and count towards their overall emissions reductions and the money will be generated back in to the Australian farming community.” Ben will explain at the Conference how these offsets were created and traded-  from go to whoa. The entire event will be offset for the full three days, this will include the electricity for the event, as well as the on-site event set up and bump out (All delegates and sponsors will be responsible for their own carbon footprint.)

The Carbon Farming Conference

"[We simply must find] more productive, safer methods that put carbon back in the soil to produce safer and better food," Al Gore urged Americans in a recent interview in TGDaily. The former Vice President also said we need to initiate an organic vegetarian diet for the general population since industrial agriculture is contributing to the relentless, growing problem of global warming. According to him, meat eating has prompted forests to clear due to higher demands for cattle, adding that synthetic nitrogen use in fertilizers continues to contribute to global warming. Mr Gore was only half wrong. The Tea Party's Michelle Bachmann - the leading Republican Presidential contender - said yesterday the cyclones and tempests slamming into the US are God's warning to Americans to change their ways. Maybe God's a vegetarian, too. In response to the laughter her comments elicited she said her remarks were meant to be a joke. And they were. Neither Mr Gore nor Ms Bachmann will be attending the Gala Awards Dinner at the Carbon Farming Conference, but there will be jokes aplenty and poetry and songs galore as part of our Talent Quest. Bring your guitar, your bush poetry and your best smile.