The Annual Subscription to the magazine contains articles and reports from key people in the field about major issues and new ideas for the Carbon Farmer and Trader. An eMagazine where thoughtful people can share their thoughts in a positive environment. A Journal that is written by the readers. Something that will showcase the intellectual muscle we have in our midst, without being snooty. The agenda as broad as civilisation itself, with the thread linking it all together being soil health.
This subscription will be available form January 2011.
(free to members of the Carbon Farming & Trading Association)
This special report will help you answer the following questions:
What is a carbon offset?
How does the market work?
How do you weigh up an offer?
What is in the CFI for you?
Why is the government doing this?
Who are the buyers?
What is a methodology?
What are integrity standards?
Will there be soil carbon offsets?
Preview Chapter:
What is a Carbon Offset?
The World – in the gathering known as the United Nations – agreed to act together to slow the progress of Global Warming any way it could while we adapted to Climate Change. Most of the world’ s credible climate scientists agreed that Carbon Dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere were the likely cause of an increase in the global mean temperature. The result of this increase would be more frequent and more severe weather events, including droughts and floods. The nations of the world decided to use an American concept called ‘cap and trade’ that had been used successfully in the 1980s to overcome acid rain by reducing emissions of sulfur dioxide. Rather than expect businesses to cease emissions immediately, Cap and Trade sets targets to achieve by certain dates, stepping down emissions by stages. This transition to a low carbon economy will require major shifts in technology in energy generation – from
burning coal and oil (hence the campaign of Climate Change denial funded by fossil fuel companies) to using renewable sources such as solar and wind and low polluting sources such as nuclear power. It would disrupt industrial economies too much to try and make the change all at once. So Cap and Trade allows companies to make reductions within their existing operations in the early stages while incorporating investment in low- emissions technology in the long term. To encourage them to make the shift, they are able to meet the gap between reductions they can easily make and their Cap by buying “offsets”. A Carbon Offset is a measured reduction in emissions in one place made to compensate for emissions made in another. It can also be a measured removal of CO2 from the atmosphere by carbon sequestration. To encourage companies to make the investment in low emissions technology, the Cap is set lower and lower with each stage, making it harder for them to simply buy their way out.
MANDATORY MARKET VS VOLUNTARY MARKET
The Mandatory Market is the place where emitters can purchase offsets to meet their targets set under a Cap and Trade system. The Voluntary Market is the place where companies wanting to become carbon neutral can buy offsets equal to their entire emissions. Hence the word “Voluntary”. Prices are often higher on the Mandatory Market because the number of credits or permits is always less than required – as a motivation to emitters to move as quickly as possible to low emissions technologies. On the other hand, voluntary offsets are usually available in unlimited n
Look behind the curtain. You’ll discover How Sound Scientific Research Can Be Wrong: Case Studies that reveal how innocent application of a methodology bearing an undetectable fault can drive policy up a cul de sac, delaying development several years; how soil carbon science became political; and the cause of the conflict. How the science community operates as a closed shop and closed ranks against soil carbon.
“There is much that is true in it… It is a debate we have to have…” Senior NRM Scientist “Insightful and well-referenced…” Senior Commonwealth Departmental Technical Officer
Why would the soil scientists of New Zealand perpetrate the myth that their country’s soils are saturated with carbon when the visual evidence points to the opposite? Hillsides collapsing, buildings sinking into soils with no structure… yet the major research institutions treat The Science of Soil Carbon as though it was a black art.
This short book – written after interviewing many of new Zealand’s most senior soil carbon experts - reveals the evidence which has yet to be refuted.
The chapters in this book were all written as part of the campaign to raise Soil Carbon as a critical issue in the debates around Global Warming in Australia and overseas. Each was produced to convince those with influence (but no understanding) how the dramatic power of the Earth can reset the Carbon imbalance in the Atmosphere and the Oceans if we ask it to. They were prepared for the unprepared. If you feel mystified by the issue of soil carbon, these chapters were prepared for you.
This is a companion volume to The Carbon Farming Handbook
