Posted under Express 107

To Offset Or  Not To Offset, That is Still The Question

The announcement by the Government to delay the implementation of the CPRS until after 2012 will not impact on the timing of the commencement of the National Carbon Offset Standard (NCOS), which will still come into effect on 1 July 2010.  But those who help manage the voluntary market for carbon credits and offsets have their own views on the change and the lack of Government clarity on this important issue.

The announcement by the Government to delay the implementation of the CPRS until after 2012 will not impact on the timing of the commencement of the National Carbon Offset Standard (NCOS), which will still come into effect on 1 July 2010. This from a spokesperson for the Federal Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency.

Government tells us that as previously announced, the Greenhouse Friendly program will be replaced on 1 July 2010 by the NCOS.  Under the NCOS, businesses will be able to become carbon neutral or develop carbon neutral products.  A logo will be made available so that consumers can have confidence that organisations and products bearing the logo have achieved carbon neutrality in a way that achieves genuine emissions reductions.

Here’s further word on this from the Department:

• The NCOS will also establish robust standards so that consumers can have confidence in the voluntary carbon offset market and the integrity of carbon offset and carbon neutral products they purchase.  
• The NCOS identifies a range of international carbon offsets that can be used for voluntary carbon offsetting.
• The NCOS also recognises offsets generated within Australia, from emission sources which do not count towards Australia’s Kyoto Protocol target, where they meet eligibility criteria and use an approved methodology.
• The Government is currently establishing a Domestic Offsets Integrity Committee to assess proposed methodologies to ensure offsets constitute genuine, additional emission reductions.

 

abc carbon express asked three industry experts to give their views on the status of the National Carbon Offsets Standards  (NCOS) in light of the delays in implementing the CPRS. 

Rob Cawthorne of Carbon Reduction Institute had this to say:

There are two parts to the NCOS, a standard for offsets, and a standard for accounting.

I can’t say anything about the accounting side. We don’t accept the standard as thorough enough to make Carbon Neutral claims and therefore reject it as a standard for Carbon Neutrality.

As for the carbon offsets, it has been common belief that the CPRS is the primary reason for the closure of the Greenhouse Friendly program and the need to have the NCOS. I believe this is a misconception, with the main reason for the NCOS being because we ratified Kyoto and have no way of allowing these to be additional to that commitment.

As our Kyoto commitment is between 2008 and 2012, the only issue should arise when we might have a gap in 2013. Once this gap forms it may be possible to produce additional voluntary credits in Australia, albeit if the CPRS comes in or we bind ourselves to any other reduction commitment the NCOS will still need to stand.

I can’t see why the CPRS announcement would have any real effect over the NCOS standard until our Kyoto commitment is complete in 2012. Unfortunately, there a large amount of confusion caused by the continued reference to the CPRS when it really should be the Kyoto.

This from Dave Sag, founder of Carbon Planet:

The NCOS becomes all the more important as voluntary action is the only game in town since the Government backslid on the CPRS.  But the NCOS was designed to sit alongside the CPRS and so there are certainly some uncertainties.  For starters, qualifying offsets under the NCOS are meant to be from sectors NOT covered by the CPRS, and that’s, well, everything now isn’t it!

The one sure thing in all of this is still the NGER act however that is forcing the big emitters to at least report, and the EEO act that requires energy efficiency opportunities with low payback periods to be enacted; but for now it’s anyone’s guess.

We just heard that Carbon Planet’s operations and services have been accredited again as carbon neutral under Greenhouse Friendly and the DCCEE emphasised in their letter that we will have to transition to the NCOS as planned.  So we can be sure from that that the Greenhouse Friendly programme is still slated to be discontinued, and rightly so I feel.

The NCOS is an innovative and positive step, and I still believe a price on carbon is inevitable in Australia.  Minister Penny  herself stated clearly that Australia won’t be able to meet its Kyoto obligations without a carbon price.  Whether that’s via an emissions trading scheme, a carbon tax or some other mechanism is of secondary importance I feel.  

NCOS will almost certainly need to be adjusted, especially when it comes to determining what are qualifying offsets.  The carbon accounting rules are unaffected by the slippage of the CPRS and firms are still progressively introducing green procurement, green tendering and other supply chain pressures that provide incentives for smaller businesses to measure, manage and minimise their emissions.  And energy prices are still going up regardless, and our experience is that a typical client saves money by engaging us to help them manage their emissions and energy.

Freddy Sharpe of Climate Friendly, was also asked to comment on the NCOS, but admitted he was in the dark as to its implementation and what it would be linked to with the demise of Greenhouse Friendly and the delay of the CPRS.

Source: www.carbonplanet.com, www.climatefriendly.com , www.NOCO2.com.au and  www.climatechange.gov.au

Posted under Express 107

Towards A Better Climate For A Green Workplace

There’s still time to register for the Sydney Climate Change @ Work Conference on 26 May, which presents the big picture and policy issues of climate change in the workplace, along with case studies and practical workshops. The Workplace Research Centre is also planning to bring the event to Brisbane (August 4) and Melbourne (29 October), as well as play a leading role in the National Sustainability Conference in Singapore (29/30 July).

Climate change @ Work explores how more sustainable approaches to energy and resource efficiency are changing jobs, human resource management, workplace relations and skill formation. This conference presents the big picture/policy issues of climate change in the workplace, along with case studies and practical workshops.

While companies are often more concerned about the technological side of climate change this conference focuses on the practical information you need to achieve a better climate in a green workplace!

Wednesday, 26 May 2010, Sydney

Thursday & Friday, 29th and 30th July, Singapore – National Sustainability Conference

The Office of Environmental Sustainability (OES), National University of Singapore and the Workplace Research Centre (WRC), University of Sydney are jointly organising The National Sustainability Conference 2010, entitled “Environmental Up-Skilling & the Green Collar Economy”. This conference builds on the Climate Change @ Work series of conferences which take place in Australia and promote achieving sustainability in the workplace through sustainable leadership and management practice.

http://www.nationalsustainabilityconference.com/index.html

Also plans are underway for the following Climate Change@Work conferences:

Friday, 4th August, Brisbane
Friday, 29th October, Melbourne

Source: www.wrc.org.au

Posted under Express 107

Lucky Last:

In the Prime of Life on Land, Carbon Matters Most

“Australia has a long history in agriculture,” points out Ken Bellamy. “That history is paralleled with declines in soil carbon. Basically, there is a dire lack of the stuff that makes soil, soil.”  Bellamy is the director of Prime Carbon, a company which has been pioneering a program to help farmers increase the carbon in their soils while creating tradable carbon credits. Read More

Journalist Graham Readfearn writes this article expressly for abc carbon express.

Carbon sequestration in soil was the subject of a research report by sustainability analyst group Connection Research in late 2009. Their report canvassed the opinions of 85 scientists, farmers and other specialists in the area. The key finding of the report was a strong belief in the validity of the technology and its enormous potential in Australia.

Environment Business Australia (EBA) already has set up the Bio-CCS Group to develop soil carbon and biosequestration projects to draw “legacy” carbon from the atmosphere and to use CO2 emissions as feedstock for biodiesel.

In the Prime of Life on Land, Carbon Matters Most

Graham Readfearn, writing expressly for abc carbon express

In most Australian power stations, the source of the power is coal. In most Australian cars, the fuel is most likely another notorious carbon-heavy fossil fuel, namely oil.

And so in the same way that carbon fuels our lives, carbon in soil is the fuel that makes the food that we eat, grow.

“Australia has a long history in agriculture,” points out Ken Bellamy. “That history is paralleled with declines in soil carbon. Basically, there is a dire lack of the stuff that makes soil, soil.”

Ken Bellamy is the director of Prime Carbon, a company which has been pioneering a program to help farmers increase the carbon in their soils while creating tradable carbon credits.

Both metaphorically and literally, it has been a task which has entailed no shortage of digging, sometimes deeply, into the emerging world of international carbon trading and climate change policy.

“The problem I had, and still have, is that there was no-one else in this field,’’ he says.  “There was just nobody doing what we are doing all the way through.  And with no market, there were no precedents or rules to follow.”

Research has found that in the first 20 years of Australian soil cropping, approximately 1,000 million tonnes of CO2 were released into the atmosphere.

Bellamy likens the issue of declining soil carbon to driving a car constantly “with the escalator to the floor”.

But why is the amount of carbon in soil such an important issue?

“Firstly you can’t manage the moisture efficiently. The soil structure becomes more and more like sand or more and more like rock. It doesn’t process nutrients for you,” says Bellamy.

Dr Jeffrey Baldock, of CSIRO Sustainable Agriculture Flagship, has been researching soil carbon and nitrogen for 20 years.

“From a biological point of view, soil carbon provides the energy that all soil-bound organisms feed off,’’ he says. “It’s the fuel. It’s also a large sink of nutrients – it actually holds on to them.’’

Without a good share of carbon, Dr Baldock explains, it becomes harder for soil to hang on to nutrients, nitrogen and the moisture which are all needed for plant growth.

“Australian soils on the whole tend to be lower in carbon content than other in other areas,” he explains.

“Generally soils have higher water holding capacity as soil carbon goes up and that can be very important if you are in a lower rainfall region.

“If we are moving towards a climate that’s warmer and drier then the ability of soil to hold more water could be very critical.’’

He says there are ways to cut down on the loss of soil carbon, such as reducing the depth and frequency of tillage in areas which have good rainfall. However, he says, reducing tillage might not be as effective in retaining soil carbon in places with lower rainfall.

Bellamy says that in some areas the loss of soil carbon has become so acute that when farmers add nitrogen to their crops some 80 per cent of it is lost either through evaporation or run off.

Nitrogen use in agriculture is a major source of the greenhouse gas nitrous oxide, which according to the US Environmental Protection Agency “is about 310 times more effective in trapping heat in the atmosphere than CO2 over a 100-year period.”

Prime Carbon’s role with farmers works in two ways. The first is to design a plan which farmers can use to change the way they manage their soil.

These could include reducing fertiliser use, cutting down on the frequency and depth of ploughing (tillage) and adding carbon-rich catalysts and bio-fertilisers.

Bellamy says: “Farmers recognise that it’s money in the bank if their farm in the wheat belt has sufficient water retention to get a crop every year rather than one good crop every eight “If you talk to a farmer they are professional – they’ll say if their soil is crap but the quality of their soil is their main asset and they know when the quality is coming up.”

At the same time as helping to improve carbon content, Prime Carbon also arranges for soils to be independently lab-tested to get a baseline level of carbon – a process which is repeated regularly over five years, after which farmers could be eligible to create carbon credits that could be sold in a marketplace.

Bellamy has been working with more than 30 farmers across Australia, including wheat and grape growers in the Riverina region of New South Wales, Barley and cattle farmers in central New South Wales, fruit and vegetable growers in Queensland and cattle and wheat farmers in Western Australia.

However, only seven of those farms have signed agreements to enhance their soils under methods devised by Prime Carbon. The rest have been given advice for free.

Due to the minimum five-year term needed before a carbon credit can be created, Prime Carbon has been responsible for less than 1000 tonnes of C02e (or 1000 credits) being sold so far with approximately 10,000 tonnes being registered.

Earlier this year, Prime Carbon accepted a heavy wrap on the knuckles from the ACCC over words used on draft marketing material which Bellamy says was sent to just four people. The brochure also appeared online.

The draft brochure incorrectly stated that Prime Carbon was registered as a broker with the National Stock Exchange (NSX), an exchange that lists small to medium-sized business and not to be confused with the Australian Securities Exchange.

In fact, Prime Carbon was registered as a broker with an organisation called the National Environment Registry (NER), a wholly-owned subsidiary of NSX.

Bellamy regrets the transgression, however minor it may seem, but the incident highlights the challenges faced when any business attempts to forge its way into an emerging market place.

In Queensland, the potential for reducing the state’s emissions from improving the carbon content in soils was laid out in a State Government-commissioned CSIRO report published last year.

Between 2010 and 2050 in Queensland alone, CSIRO research has found an extra 400,000 tonnes of CO2-e could be sequestered each year by improving soil carbon on cropped land.

The report said that while it was relatively easy to implement these improvements, soil carbon measures were more difficult to fit into national or international carbon accounting frameworks.

Last month (April 2010) the Rudd Government announced it was shelving plans for a compulsory carbon market in Australia until at least 2013.

However, in the world’s voluntary and compulsory markets soil carbon is already recognised as a definitive source of emissions reductions and carbon credits.

Methods such as those carried out by Prime Carbon will also be included in Australia’s new National Carbon Offset Standard which will come into effect in June.

CSIRO’s Dr Baldock adds: “An important aspect that will define how this goes will be the relative value of carbon against other commodities being produced.

Farmers are paid to take carbon away – crops capture carbon and grows and that then goes out the farm gate.’’

According to Dr Baldock, the amount of carbon is soils in the future could come down to economics as well as farm practices.

Farmers will have to decide how much to invest in retaining carbon in their soil against the price of nutrients or water.

“If soil carbon, or carbon in general, reached $200 per tonne then you might see a totally different agricultural face. But farmers do understand the link between productivity and soil carbon.’’

Footnote:

Carbon sequestration in soil was the subject of a research report by sustainability analyst group Connection Research in late 2009. Their report canvassed the opinions of 85 scientists, farmers and other specialists in the area. The key finding of the report was a strong belief in the validity of the technology and its enormous potential in Australia. But this was tempered by extreme scepticism on government’s role, and doubts over effective measurement and verification. The report is available from Connection Research (www.connectionresearch.com.au).

Environment Business Australia (EBA) already has the Bio-CCS Group developing soil carbon and biosequestration projects to draw “legacy” carbon from the atmosphere and to use CO2 emissions as feedstock for biodiesel. Its founding members include:

MBD Energy -  www.mbdenergy.com

Ignite Energy Resources/LawrieCo – www.igniteer.com & www.lawrieco.com.au

Soil Carbon – www.soilcarbon.com.au

Plantstone Technology – www.plantstone.com.au

Ocean Nourishment  – www.oceannourishment.com

Environment Business Australia – www.environmentbusiness.com.au

Source: www.abccarbon.com and  www.primecarbon.com.au