MUCER Conference 3-4 June, 2008 Global Gardening with a Leaky Bucket Managing Climate Risk Peter Read Massey University Centre for Energy Research

What climatic risk? (The bad news)

Surface Melt on Greenland Melt descending into a moulin, a vertical shaft carrying water to ice sheet base Source: Roger Braithwaite, University of Manchester Quite a bit of basal lubrication here ! (PR)

→ Ca year deglaciations followed by slower glaciating phases in the last ~half million years. * indicates the insolation peaks ending the warming phases. Note → the increase of CO2 levels since the last (St1) insolation peak, attributed to anthropogenic emissions related to forest fire deforestation in the course of land clearance for agricultural expansion (PR)

Thermal input to the climate system in the last half century and in the next if emissions are reduced to zero by 2035 A B

Art 3.3 The Parties should take precautionary measures…. Where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty should not be used as reason for postponing such measures …[which] … should be cost effective so as to ensure global benefits

The good news EMMISSIONS REDUCTIONS is hard and can’t do the job But CARBON REMOVALS is easy Read, P. “Commercial forestry and LULUCF for a ‘carbon neutral New Zealand’ – the ‘leaky bucket’.” IPS Working Paper 2008/01, VUW.

Comparison of carbon removals (F) with emission reductions (Z) in mitigating the level of CO 2 (in ppm) in the atmosphere A SRES-A2 ZSRES-A2 with a transition to zero emissions technologies between 2011 and 2035 FSRES-A2 with a transition to land improvement carbon removal technologies over the same period, with land use change complete by 2035 and technological progress to 2060

Global gardening CARBON REMOVALS is widely beneficial because it means Better soil quality Better water management Better rural livelihoods Secure food supplies Geographically diversified energy supply Etc etc etc

1.Invest in forest plantations to stock carbon and act as a strategic reserve of biomass raw material (quite useful as timber if the climate change panic goes away) NZ carbon neutral by 2020 EASY 2.Invest in a vehicle fleet that is compatible with biofuels (a useful hedge against ‘peak oil’ – the dear oil age which is the main cause of high food prices 3.Invest in biofuel supply systems maybe 2 nd generation cellulosic ethanol maybe gasification and Fischer Tropsche liquids most likely pyrolysis with biochar for soil improvement maybe on-farm gasification linked to ‘herd-homes’ and riparian tree plantations to prevent pollution of our rivers

Where? Potential rain-fed arable land, net of protected land and urban settlement, has been estimated by Moreira [28] based on IPCC and FAO studies [29,30], viz: Gha%usedavailable (Gha) Sub Saharan Africa North Africa and Near East North Asia Urals Eastwards Asia and Pacific South and Central America North America Europe World of which 1.99 tropical.38 temperate THERE’S PLENTY OF LAND – THE NEED IS TO INVEST IN LAND NOT CHASE AFTER INCREASINGLY HARD TO FIND OIL

The Silver Teaspoon The Kyoto Protocol’s CDM (the Clean Development Mechanism) for transferring mitigation funds to the South is a silver teaspoon Perverse Incentives driven by negative psychology of emissions reductions against an emissions cap Additionality High transactions costs Not much use for baling CO2 out of the atmosphere

The Leaky Bucket The need is to incentivize management to get into the technologies of carbon removals A bucket for baling CO2 out of the atmosphere But measurement difficulties vitiate deployment under the CDM The need is for carbon removals policies and measures as ex-ante buy-out of commitments to replace the ex-post offsets of the CDM

Thank you