Carbon credits

[Michaelangelica]

i don't think I understand this
How do you create $3 tril in "value" to be 'returned to the people' from nothing but air? Like money I guess, everyone just decides air (or pieces of paper) has value and away you go. Bizarre. Reminds me of the Cloaca Machine.

Here's why: Essentially, presidential candidates John McCain, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, leading Democrats and moderate Republicans in Congress, dozens of Fortune 500 CEOs, and mainstream environmental groups all agree that a so-called cap and trade system to regulate greenhouse gases is needed to fight global warming program. That, by itself, is remarkable.
Ask where that money should go, and the consensus breaks down. Coal-burning utilities say they should be given the permits for free - otherwise, they argue, their customers will be whacked with much higher bills. Others, including candidates Obama and Clinton, say all the permits should be auctioned - why reward the polluters, they ask? Still others want auctions so that proceeds can be used for a variety of causes, ranging from investments in renewable-energy research to middle-class tax cuts to paying down the federal debt.

Climate change regulations will generate $3 trillion. - May. 15, 2008

[Michaelangelica]

Professor gumnut and the AustralianLabor governemt seem to be ignoring farmers on this issue in their carbon credits scheme proposals.
That is a lot of seats/votes to throw away!

Should organic farmers get 'carbon credits'?

A further goal of the partnership between The Rodale Institute, the PA Department of Agriculture and the PA Department of Environmental Protection is to explore policy mechanisms by which farmers and landowners could quantify the carbon sequestered on their properties and receive a payment from the state or federal government for ecosystem services provided, or even participate in emerging 'carbon-trading' markets around the world. Although the development of carbon-trading markets in the US was put on hold by the Bush administration's decision, in 2001, to pull out of the Kyoto Protocol (citing projected deleterious effects on the struggling US economy), such markets are rapidly expanding in the European Union and elsewhere. (See, for example, co2e.com, a greenhouse gas brokerage firm based in London.)

"The Kyoto Protocol [the 1997 global agreement to reduce greenhouse gases] talks about agriculture and forestry as carbon sinks, but fails to distinguish between the different effects of different types of agriculture," notes Daniel Desmond of the PA Department of Environmental Protection. In fact, the whole business of credit for carbon-sequestration activities under the Kyoto accord is problematic, because of the lack in 1997 of good carbon inventory data that could be factored into the nation-by-nation emissions-reduction targets.

Nevertheless, although sequestration in agricultural soils can vary by climate and by soil type, multiplying 3,670 pounds of captured CO2 per acre across the 160 million acres planted to corn and soybeans in the US yields a potential CO2 capture on the order of 293 million tons per year, or as much as three-quarters of the reductions required if the US were to adhere to its Kyoto targets. (Total U.S. cropland is 431 million acres.)

Organic farming -vs- the Kyoto targets

In 1997 the U.S. agreed to reduce 1990 levels of CO2 by seven percent. So here's a question: How far would converting U.S. cropland to organic take us toward satisfying those Kyoto goals? Let's do the math:

Converting 160 million acres of corn
and soyean to organic results in
293 million tons of CO2 stored in soil

Kyoto target:
400 million ton reduction in CO2

Percentage of Kyoto goal that would be
satisfied by converting to organic:
73 PERCENT!

NOTE: This doesn't even take into consideration the drastically reduced energy expenditure and CO2 emissions of organic farming compared with using chemical fertilizers.

Thinking globally, the British Royal Society has estimated potential CO2 sequestration on the world's 2.5 billion acres of agricultural soils at 6.1 to 10.1 billion U.S. tons per year for the next 50 years. Another estimate puts the total amount of CO2 that could be captured in developing countries at 1.7 billion U.S. tons over the next decade. In short, carbon sequestration via adoption of organic agriculture could have a substantial impact on global warming.

Still, carbon sequestration by organic farming, like carbon capture through reforestation, is a short-term or 'bridge' solution, a way of buying time for more fundamental changes. Ultimately, global climate change can only be fully addressed through rationalization of energy policies, reductions in fossil fuel consumption, and improvements in emissions-control technologies. Among the possible short- to medium-term solutions, however, organic farming has a lot going for it. "There are a number of 'Star Wars'-like solutions being proposed" for carbon and carbon dioxide capture, observes Hepperly, including pumping CO2 deep into the ocean or underground--in July of this year the US Department of Energy announced that drilling had begun on a 10,000-ft 'well' to funnel CO2 deep beneath West Virginia.

Compared to expensive, experimental, high-technology projects like these, global transitioning to organic farming looks cheap and easy. "It's a no-brainer," Hepperly concludes. "Organic farming is not a technological fix, not an untried experiment that could have its own unforeseen consequences." Instead, it's a step toward solving global warming that brings with it a wealth of other environmental benefits.

New Farm Field Trials: Organic farming combats global warming

[erich]

A New Look at "Ashes to Ashes...Dust to Dust"

Biotic Carbon, the carbon transformed by life, should never be combusted, oxidized and destroyed. It deserves more respect, reverence even, and understanding to use it back to the soil where 2/3 of excess atmospheric carbon originally came from.

We all know we are carbon-centered life, we seldom think about the complex web of recycled bio-carbon which is the true center of life. A cradle to cradle, mutually co-evolved biosphere reaching into every crack and crevice on Earth.

It's hard for most to revere microbes and fungus, but from our toes to our gums (onward), their balanced ecology is our health. The greater earth and soils are just as dependent, at much longer time scales. Our farming for over 10,000 years has been responsible for 2/3rds of our excess greenhouse gases. This soil carbon, converted to carbon dioxide, Methane & Nitrous oxide began a slow stable warming that now accelerates with burning of fossil fuel.

Wise Land management; Organic farming and afforestation can build back our soil carbon,
Biochar allows the soil food web to build much more recalcitrant organic carbon, ( living biomass & Glomalins) in addition to the carbon in the biochar.

I got poking around the American Chemical Society Joint meeting and certainly found an ally in this presentation by
Paul Hepperly, Rodale Inst.;

Food and Agriculture Offer World of Opportunity to Combat Global Greenhouse Gases.
Food and Agriculture Offer World of Opportunity to Combat Global Greenhouse Gases.

I first spoke with Paul after a biochar article he did about two years ago, and recently sent him my field study proposals, and are in collaboration.

Rodale being the second oldest organic research center in the world should help certification fly by. The recent EU permits posted by Edward at 3RAgroCarbon 3R AGROCARBON
Should make US certification a slam dunk.

Dr. Mark Alley, at Virginia Tech, who sits on the voluntary Chicago Carbon Exchange (CCX) board has established credits for No-till cultivation practices which increase soil carbon content.

[erich]

Hi Listers,
I spoke to Peter Weisburg of the Climate Trust, he will be a speaker at the NABC in Boulder next month.
The Climate trust is most interested in receiving applications for Biochar programs.


$8 million in offset funding available
The Climate Trust has more than $8 million available to invest in new offset projects. We are seeking new, innovative and high-quality offset projects. There is no deadline for submitting project proposals. However, the first qualified proposals received are the most likely to be funded.

Peter Weisberg at 503.238.1915 x207.

The Climate Trust :: Apply for Funds

[HydrogenBond]

If the goal is to lower carbon, why are we auctioning the right for some to generate additional carbon? It is like saying we want everyone to go on a diet, because it is healthy. But we will auction cheese cake credits to the highest bidder. A better analogy is, we need a water ban, but we will sell water to the highest bidder. The highest bidder will then pass on the cost of the auctioned water to the consumer, who pays for them to water their lawn. No smart businessman will invest in something at an auction unless they see a return on their investment.

What is good about this big block approach, the politicians get to siphon off grease money, so they can water their lawns. Their stream will not be as noticeable, coming out of the big streams. We need an ethics clause that will not allow anyone in the bidding process to give campaign contributions before or after, or else it would look like the politicians have tampered with supply and demand, artificially lowering the supply, to create targeted demand in big blocks, so a grease money stream is make available. It is a magician trick that is easy to see through.

[InfiniteNow]

I love how most AGW deniers are the same folks who heartily thump the free market drum at every turn. Yet, when you propose a free market solution to help with climate change, they immediately talk about how "it can't work" and how you'll "break the back of the system" and "put people out of business."

Classic. Gotta love the smell of hypocrisy in the morning.

[erich]

What the CFC/Ozone success story was for raising the importance atmospheric chemistry, I feel biochar will be for carbon soil chemistry, Mycology and Microbiology. The historical climate work of William Ruddiman showing the agricultural origin of most excess CO2 begs this anthropogenic solution of soil carbon sequestration.

The same relationship I felt held for the NOX & SOX success story in raising the prospects for Cap & Trade and would mean,(with the EU lessons learned) for the cap & trade in carbon. I thought the relatively painless process for both industry and consumer in clearing the air and acid rain would offer the best carbon solution.

Dr. Hansen and the Economist magazine have turned me around with their Tax & Dividend proposal . The simplicity of calling carbon by it's name, at it's source, reduces the overall complexity, for the public most of all. A system to deal with CO2 equivalence of other GHGs will be complex enough by it's nature of not having a choke point source.

http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/2009/W...s_20090225.pdf

Politically, C tax & dividend (I prefer the name Tax & Share) may be to late to the stage this year to have a legislative chance, but I am changing my arguments for it, and will spread theirs.

Here is a post concerning modification of where the dividend should go, by Folke Günther, a chemical engineer in Sweden:
Date: Wed, Jun 3, 2009 at 9:50 AM
Subject: Re: [biochar-climatechange] Emailing: 20080604_TaxAndDividend.pdf

I agree with Jim's proposal on a global carbon tax .
However, I don't think the tax should be paid back to everybody, indiscriminately.

Instead, the tax collected to restrain emissions should be paid to those who sequester carbon from the air.
By that the counteracting measure could be very profitable
(In Sweden, the emission tax is 1 SEK per kg CO2, or 3.77 SEK (about $ 0.5) per kg carbon.)

If the same amount would be paid to those who bury char in their own land , a normal farmer, making char of the haulm could get an extra pyment of about $ 1000 per hectare! (assuming a harvest of 8 tonnes per hectare)
Many would join in. Here we are in a potential situation similar to that depicted by the anti-biochaists.
The solution to that is to restrict the payment to those following certain rules of an 'ethical' charring.
I mentioned that in my paper 'Carbon sequestration for everybody<
http://www.holon.se/folke/carbon/Terra%20pretav1_0.pdf >' about Mrs Ruth Less.

FG