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.

Taxing Air

Taxing Air

Taxing air  Facts and fallacies about climate change ISBN: 9780646902180                                                                                               by Bob Carter & John Spooner  Full colour paperback, 288 pp                                                                                                      with Bill Kininmonth, Martin Feil,  Distributed by Dennis Jones                                                                                                         Stewart Franks, Bryan Leyland RRP: $30.00 Pub date: 1 July 2013 In this accessible and beautifully produced full colour book The Age's brilliant political cartoonist John Spooner and leading environmental scientist Professor Bob Carter combine with colleagues to answer a series of critical and highly controversial questions about the politics and science of climate change. Are human industrial carbon dioxide emissions causing dangerous global warming? If so, then climate change would indeed represent one of the great moral challenges of our time. But is it possible that instead the so-called consensus science around global warming - produced by lavishly funded research institutes, and with its own international political lobby organization, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) - is wrong? Could it be that the emperor has no clothes? Accessible, clearly written and illustrated with simple scientifc illustrations, and accompanied by Spooner's wry and telling cartoons, Taxing Air answers — without the spin, evasions or propaganda that pollutes most offcial writing on climate change — every question you have about global warming but have been too intimidated by the oppressive ‘consensus’ to ask. All you ever wanted to know about the science and politics of global warming but were afraid to ask.

'I could not put Taxing Air down ... Responding to vested interests, western politicians have already wasted trillions of dollars to frighten people with lies about industrial carbon dioxide emissions. In fact, today’s global temperature lies well within life’s limits – indeed, the present-day is cooler than much of previous geological time.The gas of life rather than a pollutant, atmospheric carbon dioxide has nurtured all the forms of organism on planet Earth for many hundreds of mil- lions of years, as is so clearly explained in this beautifully written and illustrated book.' Professor David Bellamy, OBE, President, Conservation Foundation, UK;  Trustee, World Land Trust (1992-2002) 'Taxing Air is an outstanding contribution to the growing literature that examines and calls to account the climate alarmism of the past two decades. ... it provides an accurate, easily understood explanation of the many scientific and technical issues that comprise today’s climate science. Equally important, it examines the history and exposes the duplicity of some of the individuals and organisations who have vested interests in creating and maintaining horrific visions of an imagined global warming future. The book would make a splendid gift to certain members of the climate science establishment.' Dr. Art Raiche, CSIRO chief research scientist (retired)

To request a review copy or arrange an interview with Bob Carter or John Spooner, please contact: (03) 9036 6390 or Robert at rmasters@robertmasters.com.au.

DID YOU KNOW?

Just 8,000 years ago, there was virtually 

no summer sea-ice in the Arctic Ocean

Sea-level rise is natural, and declining in rate 

Australian rainfall has not decreased over the last 100 years 

A previous Australian drought lasted 69 years

By catchment management, the Murray-Darling Basin now 

contains almost 3 times as much water as it held naturally

Global air temperature has not increased for the last 16 years, despite an 8% increase in CO2

Global ocean temperature is also steady or cooling slightly

Australian territory absorbs up to

20 times the amount of CO2 that we emit

The CO2 tax will cost about $1,000/person/year; and rising

The result of reducing Australian CO2 emissions by 5% 

by 2020 will be a theoretical (and unmeasurable) 

cooling of between 0.0007O and 0.00007O C by 2100

No scientist can tell you whether the world will be 

warmer or cooler than today in 2020

Just a selection of the fascinating facts provided in answer to more 

than 100 basic questions about global warming and climate change 

that are covered in the book.

Persons ordering prior to that date at www.taxingair.com, 

and prior to bookstore availability, will receive a 

personally signed copy of the book.