Appendix 4: The Anti-Science of Soil Carbon

The following is a prime example of three characteristics of the Anti-Science of Soil Carbon: 1. Complexity as a reason why soil C should not be traded, rather than as a problem seeking a solution; 2. Scientists commenting on areas beyond their expertise without declaring their limitations, and 3. hysteria.
“While there is doubtless substantial technical potential to increase C-storage in grazed Australian ecosystems above- and below-ground, an adequate information base for accurately quantifying that expected potential for any specific changed management regime does not exist. It is not yet clear that reduced animal production is always necessarily a concomitant to achieving increased soil C stocks, although that seems logical for most situations. This poor state of the information-base will be inhibitory to the uptake of any market-based C-trading or GHG-trading system for grazing land based approaches. There are numerous complicating factors that will need to be addressed and dealt with explicitly in any market-based GHG trading scheme that involves C-sequestration into grazed ecosystems. These include, linked emission and/or uptake of methane and nitrous oxide associated with management changes for achieving changed C-sequestration, the impact on C-stocks of wildfire frequency and intensity, compensatory non-domesticated animal grazing, and large scale movement of high-C surface topsoil by flood and wind, difficulties of defining baseline C-stocks and baseline GHG fluxes from each patch of land under consideration especially when the requisite baseline is in the past, long time-frames (several decades) required and high expense for measuring change in C-stocks in each patch of land under a scheme, the high actual input-value or opportunity-value of the mineral elements associated with increased organic C stocks, the special status of any lands that have already been defined as “Kyoto Lands” by coming under Kyoto Protocol arrangements, and the interaction of C-sequestration with other environmental externalities that are coming under different management policy arrangements such as interactions with hydrological and biodiversity policies.
“The existence of the above and other real-life complexities will render market-based C-trading schemes involving pastures, exposed to the risks of complicated, ill-conceived, ill-understood, poorly regulated financial instruments and arrangements that are replete with opportunity for fraudulent scams and inappropriate diversion of community wealth to the personal fortunes of scheme managers and traders, while not delivering the scheme objectives, reminiscent of those involved in the Global Financial Crisis of 2007-2009. Thus considerable attention to transparency of the scheme details, the demonstration of actual C-sequestration in each scheme by direct measurement of changing C-stocks and fluxes from measured baselines, and independent regulation of the arrangements by well-informed regulatory agencies, would be needed to deliver the objective of actually slowing the rate of global climate change and sustaining community support for such a venture.”

Roger M. Gifford, CSIRO Plant Industry, “Carbon sequestration in Australian Grasslands: Policy and Technical Issues”, Proceedings of FAO workshop on The role of grassland carbon sequestration in the mitigation of climate change
Rome, 15-17 April 2009