Australian Public Policy to mitigate and adapt Agriculture for climate change

Jean-Francois RochecousteNational Executive Officer

Conservation Agriculture Alliance of Australia and New Zealand

1. BACKGROUNDAustralian agriculture’s Greenhouse gas emission profile

A small emission country

A high per capita emission country excluding land use change and forestry emission

Significance of agriculture in emission terms (Australia vs Global)

Stationery Energy

49%

Transport13%

Fugitive emis-sions

6%

In-dus-try5%

Agriculture15%

Waste2%

Land use9%

Australian GHG Emission by sector

Stationery Energy

26%

Transport13%

Buildings8%

Industry19%

Agriculture14%

Waste3%

Land use17%

Global GHG Emission by sector

Relevance to national GHG accounts

Agricultural emission 120,135 Gg (1000 tonnes) for 2008 from:

• Enteric Fermentation• Manure Management• Rice Cultivation

• Agricultural soils• Prescribe burning of savannas

• Field burning of agricultural residues

Agricultural GHG Emission by sector

Cattle53%

Sheep12%Other

live-stock

3%

Rice cultiva-

tion0%

Agricultural soils17%

sa-vanah

burning13%burning of crop

residue0%

Agricultural GHG Emission by sector

Cattle

Sheep

Other livestock

Rice cultivation

Agricultural soils

Prescribe burning of savanah

burning of crop residue

Non- Agricultural sec-tor

Summary

Australia is a high energy user, the agricultural profile is close to global

pattern at about 15%

2. POLICY OUTLINE IN AUSTRALIA

Current Climate Change Policy

• Establishing a carbon price ($23/tonCO2e) for highest emitters

• 3 year transition to an emission trading mechanism

• Provide support mechanism for:– renewable energy– energy efficiency– Land use

• Agriculture emission is exempt

Carbon Farming Initiative (CFI)• baseline & credit carbon offset scheme to

provide economic opportunities for farmers, forest growers, food processors and landholders

• The CFI was passed by Parliament on 23 August 2011 as the Carbon Credits (Carbon Farming Initiative) Act 2011.

Objects of this Act

1. Implement certain obligations that Australia has under the Climate Change Convention and the Kyoto Protocol

2. To create incentives for people to carryout certain offset projects

3. To increase carbon abatement that is consistent with the protection of Australia’s natural resource

Process

Operates via established methodologies to approved:

• Emission avoidance projects• Carbon sequestration projects

Under a strict governance program

Methodologies

To be eligible, a project must comply with an approved methodology. Methodologies can be proposed by any ‘person’ (inc government). Methodology must:

Be measurable and verifiable; Be supported by peer-reviewed published scientific results Account for GHG emissions resulting from the project, both direct (eg

emissions from nitrogen fertilisers used to enhance soil carbon) and indirect (eg leakage from displacement of emissions activity to another area);

Adopt conservative estimates, projections and assumptions; and For sequestration, take account of significant cyclical variations in the

sequestered carbon (eg fluctuations in annual average rainfall, which will affect the levels of carbon stored in agricultural soils and some forms of vegetation).

Process of supplying offset

Trading unitsDESIGN FEATURE OF CARBON UNIT

PROVISION IN THE CLEAN ENERGY BILL 2011

Carbon Unit (CU) or Eligible Emission Unit

Transitional 100% compliant supplied to trade exposed industries and parts of the energy sector

Australian Carbon Credit Unit (ACCU)

Kyoto ACCU /Carbon Farming Initiative (CFI)

Kyoto Units Eligible International Emissions Unit (CER; ERU; RMU etc) which is not for compliance during fixed price period

Non-Kyoto Units Non-Kyoto ACCU/ Carbon Farming Initiative which has limited compliance value can be sold on voluntary market

Interactive overview

Care For Our Country (CFOC) Program

CFI

Tax offsets on no-till equipment

Research program on methodologies

Landcare

Sustainable farming projects

$

Summary

In Climate Change policy terms its a reasonably fair offer

3. IMPACT AT FARM LEVEL

Farmers - Climate change

• Some degree of uncertainty at farm level• A large number of farmers are still not

engaged in the climate change debate• Interest is more concerned with impact and

adaptation

Farmers - Carbon offsets

• Question how does market relate to climate change

• Lost in the complexity• Concern about tax impact on inputs• Concerned about market liability (100 years

for carbon sequestration)

Farmers - Engagement points

• Incentives: will respond to No-till tax offsets• Nitrogen use efficiency