The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
C02 rewards ‘will rely on verification’
The vision of farmers being able to successfully secure carbon credits in return for reducing carbon loss within their own operations won’t be realised until a consistent system of measurement is established, according to SAC Consulting.
“I can see a time when there may be incentivised monetary rewards for farmers to reduce CO2 emissions but we need the right governing and monitoring framework adopted and in place first,” said SAC’S Mark Bowsher-gibbs.
“We have to get the relevant protocols approved and adopted by Government, such as those delivered by Agrecalc, so farmers can both certify and understand what their own farm’s carbon footprint is and how this relates to future management practices adopted in delivering food production. Only then can we start to work out how to make improvements and consider the value of accounting for carbon gains and reduced emissions.”
The carbon sequestration market in Scotland is mostly woodland and forestry operations where there is already a recognised carbon code in place, allowing carbon credit auctions to be held over the lifetime of the investment.
“With woodland it is possible to assess carbon gain according to known tree growth for different species, allowing sequestration forecasts to be made over a period of, say 25-40 years,” said Mr Bowsher-gibbs. “We don’t have that yet in agriculture.”
There’s also the question of how to manage situations where credits might be traded on the promise of farmers changing their management practice to reduce emissions, maybe over a 20-year period.
That might be based, for example, on moving from a plough-based system and switching to minimum tillage principles. If, for whatever reason, you have to get the plough out of the shed in year five, all the previous carbon saving work would be compromised.
Mr Bowsher-gibbs added: “We have to devise how to measure the process and in a consistent and independently verified manner.”