The Log | School News

Update from the Nicholas Institute

Farmers, Foresters, Investors Receive First Major “How-To”Manual on Turning Land-Use Practices Into Verifiable Greenhouse Gas Offset Credits

The first “how-to”manual for farmers and foresters interested in reducing greenhouse gas emissions through changes in land-use and farming practices, and turning those reductions into verifiable credits for trading in carbon markets, has hit U.S. bookshelves.

Duke University Press published Harnessing Farms and Forests in the Low-Carbon Economy: How to Create, Measure and Verify Greenhouse Gas Offsets, a technical guide for farmers, foresters, traders and investors, in June.

The Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions developed the guide in collaboration with the nonprofit advocacy group Environmental Defense.William Chameides, dean of the Nicholas School and former chief scientist at Environmental Defense, and Zach Willey, an environmental economist at Environmental Defense, edited the guide.

The 240-page book explains how farmers and foresters can reduce emissions of methane and other greenhouse gases, and convert their land’s ability to store carbon dioxide into revenue-generating “offsets”that can be bought and sold in future carbon markets.

“This is a comprehensive roadmap that paves the way for agriculture as a verifiable, measurable carbon sink,”says Dick Wittman, a member of the Agricultural Carbon Market Working Group and the former president of the Pacific Northwest Direct Seed Association.

“Recent studies by Kansas State University and others have indicated that carbon could be an $8 billion market for agriculture,” Wittman says.“This document proves that specific agricultural conservation tillage practices are a legitimate method to store carbon.”

The guide is divided into three sections. The first provides an overview for legislators, landowners and those unfamiliar with offset markets but interested in learning about them. The second provides a more detailed but nontechnical exposition of the offset process for project developers, investors and purchasers of offsets.Farmers and other land managers will find, in the third section of 13 appendices at the end of the volume, the technical information detailing exact practices for sequestering and measuring carbon in soils and forests.

Some land managers in agriculture and forestry already are building demonstration projects that apply the recommendations in the guide.

In Idaho, reforestation projects will return previously cultivated lands to pine forests, with the resulting offsets aggregated by a Native American tribe. In New York, a group of small landowners and dairies is producing offsets by combining reforestation, no-till farming, methane capture from manure,buffer zones and cover crops.

“We know land-use practices can give us more options for reducing greenhouse gas emissions over the next 20 to 30 years, and flexibility for companies adjusting to a U.S. carbon cap once it is enacted,”said Nicholas Institute Director Tim Profeta.“But farmers and foresters have needed specific guidance, and lawmakers need to know that the reductions can be verified.This book gives us that information and assurance.”

Nicholas Institute Works with U.S. Senators on Economic Protection Plan for Carbon Trading Markets

The Nicholas Institute worked closely with four U.S. Senators this year to help craft a bill to amend “cap and trade” legislation so that it would limit greenhouse gas emissions without adversely affecting the economy.

The four senators, all of whom are considered critical to the passage of legislation to limit U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, are John Warner (RVa.), Mary Landrieu (D-La.), Lindsey Graham (RS. C.) and Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.).

The Senate offices and the Nicholas Institute announced the bill to reporters at a press conference in late summer.

The proposal is the first to offer a plan to help the United States’burgeoning emissionstrading market balance the goals of significantly reducing the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions while protecting industry and consumers from excessive energy prices that could occur when making the transition to a lower carbon economy.

Concerns about cost containment have been a stumbling block for past proposals put forth by other Congressional offices.

The new proposal focuses on providing the market with flexibility to help reduce costs naturally. It offers two measures to relieve excessively high costs that would indicate a scarcity of low-carbon options.The first measure is to expand companies’ ability to borrow permits against future year reductions and also expand their ability to use pollution offsets.The second measure, to be used if high prices are not relieved by the first measure, is to add a slightly larger number of permits to the market.This temporary increase would be offset by reducing available permits in a later year,when more options have been developed.

The measures would be implemented by a proposed Carbon Market Efficiency Board, which would oversee what is estimated to be a multibillion dollar emissions trading market.The board would operate much like the Federal Reserve Board, providing information on price and lowcarbon technology investment trends to Congress and the public, and it would employ cost-relief measures when a market correction is needed.

“If we are going to succeed with reducing U.S. greenhouse gas emissions,we have to understand the major economic responsibility and opportunity we have here.This proposal aids the economy while securing the environmental goal, which in turn provides certainty for investment in low-carbon solutions,”says Tim Profeta, director of the Nicholas Institute.

The senators’plan assumes that the underlying legislation will contain elements of flexibility that can help the market avoid excessive costs, including allowing companies to bank emissions permits, or borrow emissions permits from future years, allowing pollution offsets.