Howdy, all--
Those of you awake to the issue of the forthcoming global (and national)
carbon economy will want to see NRDC's new report: "Agricultural Soil
Carbon Accumulation in North America: Considerations for Climate Policy."
http://www.nrdc.org/globalWarming/psoil.asp
I've pasted the summary of the report below. News was forwarded via the
CLIMATE-L mailing list.
peace
mish
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> Agricultural Soil Carbon Accumulation in North America:
> > Considerations for Climate Policy
> >
> > Summary
> >
> > The Kyoto Protocol introduces the possibility that changes in carbon
> stock on
> > agricultural and forest land and soils may, in the future, be counted
> against
> > countries' commitments to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. Including
> > activities related to land use change and forestry in the international
> climate
> > change agreement may stimulate new incentives for soil-conservation
> practices
> > domestically. Other considerations pertinent to deciding whether to
> include
> > these activities are: Can countries assess changes in their national
> carbon
> > stock accurately and at a reasonable cost? Can reported stock changes be
> > verified independently? Will including carbon sink credits
> significantly weaken
> > the overall effectiveness of the convention during the first commitment
> period
> > (2008-2012)? Another important consideration is the wider
> environmental impact
> > of different sequestration practices. Some activities that increase carbon
> > sequestration in soils are related to lower fertilizer use, while other
> > activities require additional fertilizer. Some sequestration
> activities may
> > lead to an increase in emissions of other greenhouse gases aside from
> carbon
> > dioxide and therefore require additional study.
> >
> > This paper examines these issues for agricultural soils, considering recent
> > research in North America. While recent literature has identified
> improvements
> > in crop yield as a source of additional carbon accumulation in soils, these
> > improvements tend to rely on higher fertilizer use, which has related
> > environmental costs, and will not necessarily augment production of the
> relevant
> > part of the plant -- the residue. In contrast, conservation tillage
> provides a
> > range of ancillary environmental benefits, although it does have some
> negative
> > effects, such as increased herbicide requirements. A third category of
> practices
> > would involve establishing and maintaining cover crops such as winter
> covers and
> > inter-row perennials. These activities tend to lead to greater
> increase in soil
> > carbon stocks than accumulated through conservation tillage, and they have
> > positive environmental impacts related to preventing soil erosion. These
> > practices are not explicitly rewarded under U.S. soil conservation
> incentive
> > programs. The U.S. Department of Agriculture should consider developing
> > programs that would provide incentives for their establishment, as well as
> > improved public information on their use.
> >
> > Annual accumulation in agricultural soils could represent a reduction
> of more
> > than 10% of Annex I carbon dioxide emissions, which compares against Kyoto
> > Protocol commitments of a 5.2% reduction from 1990 levels by 2008-2012.
> > Therefore, including these carbon sink activities could significantly
> weaken the
> > effort needed to reduce emissions in other sectors. To maintain the
> > effectiveness of Kyoto Protocol commitments, several options for
> limiting sink
> > credits for this source are available that relate to uncertainties and
> trends,
> > as well as to the effect on national totals.
> >
> > This paper also concludes that incentives for carbon sequestration
> practices
> > should be implemented independently of farm-level soil sampling because
> of the
> > high costs of on-site soil carbon monitoring. Currently, only a small
> proportion
> > of U.S. farms monitor the organic content of their soils and their
> estimates
> > relate to stocks rather than to changes in carbon. A soil carbon monitoring
> > system that included all U.S. farms could cost more than $1 billion for the
> > first commitment period. Because of the high cost of extensive
> sampling, future
> > assessments will most likely need to be iterative, with selective sampling
> > deployed to improve existing models and future modeling work applied,
> in turn,
> > to set priorities for future soil sampling. Incentives and rewards for
> carbon
> > sequestration should be activity-based and should help to promote a broader
> > range of practices than are now encouraged under the U.S. Department of
> > Agriculture's soil conservation incentive programs. Lastly, carbon
> accumulated
> > through any of these means is easily lost because these practices can
> readily be
> > discontinued, and so assessment procedures should be devised so that
> they will
> > not overestimate accumulation.
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu May 11 2000 - 22:02:14 EDT