Tragedies under Kyoto 1 will be echoed under proposed Kyoto 2.

Republished from Australian Climate Sceptics blog (LINK)

John Spooner: Taxing Air

Marcus Priest writing from the Lima COP20 Conference in the The Age:

But the Abbott Government is also in the middle of a new controversy at the Lima conference over the way Australia's emissions target will be calculated under the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol, the current global climate agreement, due to expire in 2020 and replaced by any new deal signed in Paris next year. 

With apologies to John Spooner.

Australia is seeking to use favourable rules around land clearing - originally agreed to under Kyoto in 1997 to establish an earlier target - in calculating its promised cut for 2020 under the protocol's second stage. 

If Australia is not allowed to include land use emissions to calculate its target it is estimated that it will increase the national 2020 goal by between 40 to 80 million tonnes of carbon emissions or up to 2.5 per cent. 

Australia is threatening that it will not ratify Kyoto again if it does not get its way on targets, and has won support from major developed nations and also Brazil. (bold added)

In 1998, under the Howard Government, the Science, Technology, Environment and Resources Group issued Current Issues Brief 10 (link) contained inter alia:

• Credit for reductions in greenhouse gas emissions from land clearing changes or the creation of greenhouse sinks was allowed for in the Kyoto Protocol.

Allowance for emission reductions from land use changes was permitted in the base year in the Kyoto Protocol. Thus, reductions in greenhouse gas emissions from declining rates of land clearing or forestry can be used to meet target commitments. Similarly, removals of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by absorption into biological systems can be used. These removals of carbon dioxide, for example the planting of forests, are referred to as 'sinks'. 

Ian Hampton writes of Australia's actions in Lima:

This is a carbon copy of the tactics adopted by the then Howard Government in the lead up to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol agreement. Australia's "success" in getting the "Australia Clause" in the Kyoto Protocol led directly to the Howard Government "engineering" the much more restrictive 2003 NSW Native Vegetation Legislation and similar legislation in Queensland.

Why Tony Abbott would pander to the loony lefties who read the SMH and watch "our" ABC is a mystery. Turning his back on the people who voted for him and bowing to  people who will never vote for him seems a suicide move.

SO, how did the Kyoto 1 Land Use Protocol work out for Australian Land holders. Let's look at two examples:

• Farmer tried to work with the Land Use Protocol;
• Farmer lost farm due to the Land Use Protocol. 

Farmer tried to work with the Land Use Protocol

Jennifer Marohasy wrote of the Stuarts of Mt Morris Station in June 2014:

Cate speaking to ABC radio May 20, 2014, about how carbon farming is a “good business strategy” at http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-05-20/mount-morris-cate-stuart/5465060 . But the banks, for good reason, thought otherwise.

Cate Stuart among the mulga trees the Stuarts have used to create a
carbon-storage scheme with the help of Australian Carbon Traders.
Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen Source: News Corp Australia

Mark and Cate Stuart tried to work within the system and create a carbon sink. The sink was supposed to create income of $400,000 every 3 years. (link)

Cate and Mark Stuart will be evicted from their historic Charleville cattle station, Mount Morris, on Thursday after rural lender Rabobank last year called in the receivers Ferrier Hodgson to ­recoup an outstanding debt of $2.6 million. 

The Stuarts are heartbroken. But the tough outback family, which has run the 20,000ha far-west Queensland spread for the past six years, isn’t going without a fight. A very modern fight. 

They say the bank has failed to recognise their wild and sprawling home is more than just a cattle farm: it is a carbon bank. 

For the past four years, the ­Stuarts have worked with thespecialist carbon farming company Australian Carbon Traders to capture and store carbon on 5000ha of their mulga tree ­reserves. 

They planned to earn up to $400,000 every three years in valuable carbon credit payments.

Mt Morris is now for sale - See LINK.  The Stuarts have lost everything.

Cate has been featured before on the Australian Climate Sceptics blog, during the Convoy of No Confidence: LINK

Cate is now known as "Convoy Cate from Charleville." Listen to Cate on ABC's Counterpoint HERE.

Farmer lost farm due to the Land Use Protocol 

Readers of these pages should be aware of Peter Spencer: Our friend, Joanne Nova, has written a magnificent summary HERE

Peter Spencer’s story is one I didn’t think could happen in Australia. He is the farmer in New South Wales who bought a farm and then lost 80% of it when rules changed to stop people clearing native vegetation. Unable to use most of his property, he was slowly bankrupted. Though he broke no law, he lost his life’s work and his beloved farm in late 2010. There was no way out. He couldn’t sell the property — who would buy a piece of land that could not be used? Farmers all around Australia lost billions of dollars in assets as the value of their land and produce declined. 

It is this legislation and the resulting theft of the stored carbon in the resulting trees by the Commonwealth (enabling Australia to meet its Kyoto commitments) that is at the root of Peter Spencer's case against the Commonwealth and NSW. (link)

Read the trial notes in  "Peter Spencer: Court diary"

These are just two stories (from both sides of the boundary fence) of the myriad tragedies caused by Land Use Protocol under the original Kyoto Protocol.

Now, landholders (and all Australians)  should gear up for more tragedies IF the Abbott Government gets acceptance of their new Land Use Protocol.

Carbon credits turn to debt

Cate Stuart at Mount Morris

From the Australian

THE boxes are packed, the last of the cattle have been rounded up and the ute is loaded with chairs, saddles and tools.

Cate and Mark Stuart will be evicted from their historic Charleville cattle station, Mount Morris, on Thursday after rural lender Rabobank last year called in the receivers Ferrier Hodgson to ­recoup an outstanding debt of $2.6 million.

The Stuarts are heartbroken. But the tough outback family, which has run the 20,000ha far-west Queensland spread for the past six years, isn’t going without a fight. A very modern fight.

They say the bank has failed to recognise their wild and sprawling home is more than just a cattle farm: it is a carbon bank.

For the past four years, the ­Stuarts have worked with the specialist carbon farming company Australian Carbon Traders to capture and store carbon on 5000ha of their mulga tree ­reserves.

They planned to earn up to $400,000 every three years in valuable carbon credit payments.

But the bank is blocking the carbon-storage scheme’s go-ahead on Mount Morris, even though the Stuarts say the project is eligible for verified credits under the federal government’s Carbon Farming Initiative.

Rabobank says the problem with carbon farming is that it ties up farmland for too long.

In emails sent to the Stuarts, the bank states that it views the stored carbon mulga reserves, set aside for 100 years under federal government rules, as effectively a liability if the property was to be sold in the future. The bank does not see the carbon as an asset.

It’s an issue that goes to the heart of the Abbott government’s commitment to direct action as the best way to tackle climate change. The Carbon Farming Initiative is designed to benefit farmers and sequester carbon in soils and trees to cut carbon in the atmosphere.

For Cate Stuart, it is a situation that would be ludicrous — if it were not so tragic. “Here we are trying to do the right thing and store carbon in our mulga trees under the CFI, which is just what the Liberal Party, the Nationals, Labor and the Greens all say we should be doing, and the banks aren’t letting us do it,” she says.

“All we were trying to do is diversify our own income stream using mulga reserves on the property to store carbon, while at the same time looking after the land; instead we get thrown off our farm and our whole family is broken up.”

She sees Rabobank is doubly liable for their current financial woes. Not only did the bank refuse to give its approval to allow the mulga reserve scheme to go ahead on Mount Morris, but it also then blocked recognition of any potential income from carbon credits in its assessment of the farm’s financial viability.

Australian Carbon Traders chief executive Ben Keogh says the problem is being experienced by farmers across Australia. “This is a perfectly legitimate way of farming and an alternate land use that is a perfect fit for farmers in many of Australia’s drier zones,” says Mr Keogh.

“But the banks don’t see carbon farming as a serious way of earning income; they don’t think carbon credits will ever happen and so they don’t allow the systems to be proven and legitimised on properties where they hold a mortgage.”

Rabobank’s country banking chief, Peter Knoblanche, denies that his bank has any policy categorically opposed to all carbon farming projects on rural properties. While he did not know the specifics of the Mount Morris case, such carbon storage schemes were difficult for banks to handle. “It’s an interesting and complex topic and each proposal is different; but because land is often locked up under these schemes for such long periods of time, like the current 100-year rule, it does have the potential to restrict the other uses the land might be put to by future buyers if the farm is sold.”

The Australian Bankers Association recently held talks with the federal government to voice its concerns about the impact of carbon farming on farm valuations and long-term viability.

A spokesman for federal Environment Minister Greg Hunt said the government was establishing a 25-year option in addition to the current 100-year carbon farming rule. “This should significantly deal with some of the restrictions created by Labor’s insistence on an unrealistic 100-year requirement (for verified carbon storage projects),” the spokesman said.

Mr Keogh says the scale of the mulga tree carbon storage possible on Mount Morris is immense. In the past three years, the 5000ha of the Stuart’s mulga scrub regenerated to produce an extra four tonnes per hectare of timber or stored carbon.

At current rates of $20 a tonne, the price is current until February next year. Under previous government rules, the Stuarts were in line for a windfall of $400,000 in their first payment — if their bank had agreed to the project being formalised. Instead, project approvals are so limited that just 4.7 million credits worth $9.4m have been generated under the government’s vaunted Carbon Farming Initiative so far, to be sold back into the Emissions Reduction Fund.

Cate Stuart says all the excitement about carbon farming is now little solace for her family. With growing healthy mulga trees on her farm, but no carbon payment cheques flowing in, the receivers drove up her front drive last month, asking for the farm keys.

“We have tried to do the right thing and be good stewards of the land; instead we have lost everything we owned.”