Do you know the clean energy future plan encourages innovation?

Do you know different programs affect you in different ways?

Do you care anyway?

Can you have innovation and policy outcomes in harmony?

Let us confuse you. You must decide what and when and how you will get engaged. You will be given information that says you can, should and have a duty to be involved in a program.

Why would you be confused?

1. The federal government’s carbon tax is just days away, and seminars will guide you to carbon price effects.
2. Carbon farming initiatives and the opportunities available to farmers who want to innovate in the sector through the program are subject to being on the positive list.
3. The Carbon Farming Initiative, the Biodiversity Fund and Energy Efficiency can be mutually exclusive.
4. Federal programs tend to look at the big picture, and state run programs tend to look for additional capture.
5. The clean energy future plan does not make it mandatory for any program if you are outside the policy list.
6. You are not clearly made aware of the differences of the programs. That is possible exclusion from one or all of the programs.
7. Bi-partisan political support is by degrees, not absolute.

Let CO2Land org give you a example: A recent seminar, hosted by NSW Farmers’ Association and Sydney Metropolitan Catchment Management Authority, focused on the federal government’s clean energy future plan and the carbon farming initiative. Farmers were encouraged to look at how they can reduce their carbon emissions, in a way that complements their existing business, to develop innovation strategies.

But, can farmers double dip into each program? The short answer, you should be aware, very very aware you must make choices of what you engage to do. Put this way “One farmer has implemented a scheme where effluent is collected and the methane emissions are captured then burned to generate electricity (Example from the seminar by Mr David Eyre of NSW Farmers Association)

Then the carrot “Grants are available to farmers who have an appetite for innovation and want to develop carbon schemes”. The question then becomes, on what program? How do I decide? Am I content to be just inside the tent, or am I driven to do something more aligned to sustainable and improving practices?

Then you should be aware business as usual can have penalties!

BBC Headline sub-title: Weather matches mood: Environmental supporters march in the rain at Rio+20, 22 June 2012.

Outcomes are funny things: sometimes they are policy, and sometimes they are political outcomes, or they are both. No matter what ticks your box, widespread criticism on what was the likely outcome for sustainable development in Rio + 20 make it hard to declare if any outcome was conclusive.

With high expectation that more than a hundred world leaders would tackle poverty and damage to the natural world with definitive measures. The consensus is few tangible measures have been agreed.

The blame game that will be the fallout, and a wager is we will hear similar ‘insipid’ games played in our own politics. If you take note of these comments you will see the illustration of what to expect:

• Fernando Cardoso Former Brazilian President: “This is a ‘once in a generation’ moment when the world needs vision, commitment and, above all, leadership”, and “Sadly, the current document is a failure of leadership.”

• The British Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, went so far as to call it “insipid”.

• Former Brazilian President Fernando Cardoso, who chaired the 1992 Earth Summit, said “This old division between environment and development is not the way we are going to solve the problems that we are creating for our grandchildren and great-grandchildren”.

• BBC environment correspondent Richard Black says: “The overall feeling here is that governments have missed an opportunity to change the course of human development,” and “But it’s clear not every country wanted a change of tack. The US, Canada and many developing nations appear content to continue with business as usual.”

CO2Land org advocates that regardless of the need for leverage for power, We have to accept that the solutions to poverty and inequality lie in sustainable growth, not growth at all costs. Taking ‘note’ of initiatives for sustainable growth and burying any chance of enthusiasm in 50 pages of text is not enough, it is not even good politics.

Senate recommends new agricultural body
The Senate Inquiry into agricultural education has recommended a new agricultural body to represent farmers and agribusinesses be established for policy.

On the NFF website the President, Jock Laurie, said. “The NFF’s very mandate is to represent farmers and the broader farm sector: we already have a powerful reputation, a strong and established relationship with Government and have achieved major outcomes for our sector. The suggestion that yet another body be formed is completely counterproductive to Australian agriculture”.

The senate obviously has a different view and wants the strategic direction for the future of the agriculture sector to have different leadership on agricultural education, the issues around foreign investment, and food security.

The NFF is not happy, they are on record as saying the Senate Inquiry overstepped its terms of reference and has not recognised issues where the NFF has runs on the board, and is achieving real outcomes for the sector.

CO2Land org can understand the frustration and can sympathise on the calls for greater resourcing of agricultural representation across the sector and greater collaboration between organisations. It is sincerely hoped all will be handled so that creditable representation will be achieved and work already advanced on foreign investment, the Rio+20 Forum etc. will result in a more than  just a series of outputs termed an outcome. The trademark of a body not concerned with real innovation.

 

To CFI or not to CFI – Technology related innovations could help decision-making.

The scenario: You know your life on the land has taught you many a key lesson; major events can strike at any time. These predictable events and many a warning about climate related events is given, you would make an assessment, and peer pressure might help you determine it is improbable that such events will affect your activities – this year.

Now comes your problem: Legislation encourages incentives to change land management practices. You follow a lot of stories, get anecdotal advice, but remain apprehensive. What do you need to help with your decision process to participate, you know there are a lot of government sponsored programs, no end of ‘professional advice’ on practices, and remain concerned it is all a bit ‘tent revival’ flavoured?

The cause of your unease can be explained by the knowledge that your information package is not complete, that penalties can be levied under curtain conditions that might not be apparent now, that improbable events can occur.

On the later point (improbable), recent disasters proved that conventional systems fail, that chaos would have persisted had it not been for innovative solutions. Those solutions were in the hands of the people, not those in authority, the ability to be there on the spot, to communicate instantly the situation helped in a multiplicity of ways.

The point of this story is because technology was advanced and accessible, decisions could be made on the real circumstances involving you. You could then confidently move forward with what you access is for you to commit to, no hype, no undue pressure from the ‘tent’.

It happens CO2Land org has talked to Carbon Innovation, Carbon Training International and their business partners and while some announcements have been made of a relationship between Balance Carbon and Carbon Training International to bring you CFI trading capability under the peerage of the Carbon Market Institute, you can be confident major announcements will be made on the progress of new generation technology innovations that are at the forefront and involve other partners. With this advancement you can minimize potential of the “Black Swan” (book printed 2007, author Nassim Nicholas Taleb – not of the treasurer). The reference is quoted as ”until white settlers landed in Western Australia and discovered black swans, it was assumed all swans were white”.  Landholders may identify with this story as history has thrown up many such examples; but it is often easier to put aside the impacts because conventional wisdom assigns the possible as improbable.

Watch this space, 0h a change is coming.

Five years after Australia’s “direct action” pledge (John’s not Julia’s), We are seeing serious criticism by the Greens that the schemes overstated their aims, claims and were underachievers. If not total failures.

A brief background is: Australia started a global fund to fight forest destruction with the aim of halving the rate of deforestation and reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 3 billion tonnes a year. The politics of the day was convinced emissions reductions greater than 10 times that under Kyoto Protocol was possible, and born was the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) schemes in Indonesia.

The Sydney Morning Herald, 11 June 2012, published under the story “Credits lost in tangle of Aceh’s forest” that the Australian government and private sector schemes in Indonesia “have faltered or fallen spectacularly, recriminations flying”. Maybe even worst is the claims the REDD is yet to earn $1 for preservation of forests, and yet to generate a single carbon credit!

But can Julia save John from history recording his mistake? Can super Julia’s and her team ‘policy fix’ with a carbon-trading scheme, which begins its fixed price period on July 1, by saving a big supply of carbon credits sourced from a renewed vigor to direct action in other countries, and maybe save Indonesia’s forests.

Without needing Einstein to work it out, regardless of A bott’s hot air spittle, we need offshore credits to met targets modeled as 434 million tonnes a year by 2050.

As Australians, we can run but we cannot hide from it, we are large emitters from a small population and we cannot meet even modest greenhouse reduction targets without sourcing credits overseas. This will be especially true for our farmers under the Carbon Farming Initiatives, which has bi-partisan support.