The Climate Institute's
discussion paper on how agriculture might participate in emissions trading is notable for two reasons: it exists, and it doesn't sugar-coat its ideas.
The paper makes suggestions that will put a burr under the saddle of just about everyone in agriculture. That shouldn't detract from the fact that it is, at last, a starting point for discussion on the practicalities of how agriculture engages with an emissions trading scheme.
It's a bold step, taken where others haven't been prepared to go because of uncertainties about the international policy environment, the CPRS, or agriculture's emissions accounting. But it's a necessary step, because the alternative is wearying and unconstructive repetitions of "we'll all be rooned".
The Climate Institute's contribution can be regarded as what's impolitely known in the writing world as "the crappy first draft". The first draft is the hardest work of all for the writer, but essential, because it is the point at which a formless cloud of ideas is given substance.
Even if a crappy first draft bears no resemblance to the final product, it provides concrete material for moving onto the next draft, and the next, toward a conclusion.
The Climate Institute has delivered a first draft out of the noise of climate change and emissions trading politics. As with any piece of writing, only time (and in this case, the quality of responses) will determine whether this draft is indeed crappy. But it is a start, and it slaps down some bracingly unpalatable concepts that agriculture can't afford to ignore.
There are no sacred cows in the Institute's survey of emissions trading options. Land clearing, farm-to-forest conversion and levies on inputs and products are all on the table as part of a bigger picture.
So, what happens if land clearing carries a carbon tax; or if by not clearing, a farmer creates something that can be sold for its carbon benefits? If a proportion of every farm is planted to carbon forestry? If milk and meat are subject to an "emissions intensity" levy?
Uncomfortable ideas, but ideas that Australian agriculture needs to consider, fearlessly and creatively—and preferably, swiftly.
Last month the Carbon Disclosure Project, which rates international firms on their greenhouse gas and climate change strategy reporting, noted that 82 per cent of the Global 500 companies responded to its survey in 2009, up from 77 per cent last year.
Fourth in the Carbon Disclosure Leadership Index is supermarket behemoth Walmart, one of a growing number of companies beginning to demand greenhouse gas accountability from its suppliers.
About the same time, a group of 181 global investors claiming to manage a collective US$13 trillion (that's 12 zeroes) collectively called on the world's governments to deliver strong and speedy action on climate change.
(It was also last month that New Zealand’s new conservative government announced that its agricultural sector would be covered by the New Zealand ETS from 2015.)
Political scuffles continue, but big business is preparing for emissions to come with a cost?, and is accepting that there are potentially worse costs for being tardy in planning.
If emissions trading is acknowledged as part of doing business, managers can choose to treat carbon costs as a punitive tax, or an opportunity to identify waste and drive innovation.
With notable exceptions, Australian agriculture has surrendered to the punitive mindset—or the view that farming is itself some sort of sacred cow that can’t or won’t be touched by emissions trading.
But agriculture doesn’t live on an economic island. If the rest of the economy is engaged with an ETS, the industry considered to produce 15 per cent of the nation’s greenhouse gas problem will be engaged too—even in the unlikely event it isn’t involved directly in the trading scheme.
With its discussion paper, The Climate Institute argues that some form of farm sector engagement with an ETS is inevitable and necessary. The question it poses is, how?
The sector can choose to constructively address the question, or create some alternative path that makes it a useful player in a low carbon economy.
What it can’t do is not play at all. It’s in the emissions trading game, boots, mouthguard and all, and anyone who believes otherwise—to quote The Castle's Darryl Kerrigan—is dreamin'.
* The paper, "Towards Climate-Friendly Farming" can be downloaded from here. Deadline for submissions is November 13, 2009.
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