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  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] Farms on the radar at Copenhagen climate talks
  • Date: Mon, 16 Nov 2009 22:14:58 -0700


"Farmers can lock up carbon by tilling the soil less and by improving the
fertility of the land, for example adding organic matter including dung and
crop waste."


Farms on the radar at Copenhagen climate talks
Fri Nov 13, 2009 6:17am EST

LONDON (Reuters) - U.N. negotiators will next month put farming onto the
radar of climate regulations for the first time, but governments face
aggressive lobbies and gaps in the science proving the extent of agricultural
emissions.

Farming is both a likely victim of climate changes including more droughts
and floods, and a cause, through the release of greenhouse gases from
fertilizers and cattle. The sector also has a wide impact through soil
management.

Much public focus is on saving the world's forests to slow climate change,
but soils hoard three times more carbon than all the world's plants,
underlining how farm management can significantly counter or add to manmade
carbon emissions.

Farmers can lock up carbon by tilling the soil less and by improving the
fertility of the land, for example adding organic matter including dung and
crop waste.

A U.N. climate meeting in Copenhagen in December may launch a research
program to test low-carbon incentives, possibly targeting the 2 billion poor
living on small farms, for roll-out from 2013 under a new global climate
treaty.

In industrialized countries, new rules will limit or at least monitor farm
carbon from as early as 2012 in the United States and Europe, and from 2015
in Australia and New Zealand. Double-click here for different approaches.

"They're lucky to have got away with it this far, it should be included in a
U.S. climate bill and in Copenhagen," said Robert Goodland, formerly of the
World Bank and co-author of a report which last month caused a stir by
estimating that farm livestock account for 51 percent of all global
greenhouse gases.

The estimate included carbon emissions from burning trees to clear land for
cattle, and cows' respiration as well as their methane-rich burps, and took
account of new research suggesting methane is a stronger greenhouse gas than
previously thought.

More conventional estimates put agriculture at about 14 percent of global
greenhouse gases, rising to a third including deforestation.

TOOLS

Uncertain accounting is a critical obstacle in harnessing the potential of
the agricultural sector and especially soils, which in theory could cut
annual global greenhouse gas emissions by as much as 10 percent from present
levels by 2030.

One example of the scientific fog is no-till, where farmers plough the soil
less and so retain more carbon. But in soggy land that can increase emissions
of nitrous oxide -- a far more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide,
scientists say.

"We know farm management has a very significant influence on how much carbon
is in the soil," said Cesar Izaurralde, a soil scientist at the U.S. Pacific
Northwest National Laboratory. "I think in the next two to three years the
research community will have the tools ready."

A new U.N. paper proposed last Friday at climate talks in Barcelona a
"program of work" to add farm research to the climate deal to be agreed in
Copenhagen, which could pave the way for support for low-carbon incentives in
developing nations.

The World Bank's BioCarbon Fund gives a glimpse of how that may unfold,
trialing two projects in Kenya to lock carbon into the soil, and so generate
offsets for sale to rich polluters in the developed world.

"The projects we're working on are real projects," said Johannes Woelcke, the
World Bank's team leader for the Kenya trials which will cut carbon dioxide
emissions by an estimated 130,000 tonnes annually, involving 90,000
small-scale farmers.

"We're demonstrating that this is working. Of course there needs to be
further work on accounting methods."

Like other experts, Woelcke hopes the final text from Copenhagen will refer
to agriculture -- unlike the existing Kyoto Protocol -- and support more
trials and research.

WARY

In the developed world, governments have to decide for themselves how to
limit farm emissions. Lobbies are wary of steps to embrace the sector in
climate change policies.

New Zealand and Australia have plans to limit farm emissions under cap and
trade schemes. The European Union and U.S. plan focus on rewards through
carbon offsets or direct payments.

"We're not happy with an emissions trading scheme full stop, we remain
emphatically opposed," said Don Nicolson, president of Federated Farmers of
New Zealand. The American Farm Bureau (AFB) opposes draft U.S. climate bills
which would cap carbon emissions from industry, but not from agriculture.

"We oppose the bills in congress," said Rick Krause, senior director of
congressional relations for the AFB, saying the bills would raise fuel and
fertilizer costs.

The public must debate what kind of farming they wanted, for example to
choose between housed, low-carbon cows, and roaming, less carbon-limited
beasts, said Allan Buckwell, policy director at Britain's Country Land and
Business Association.






  • [Livingontheland] Farms on the radar at Copenhagen climate talks, Tradingpost, 11/17/2009

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