The report confirms many of the issues that I have been concerned about in relation to the application of an emissions trading scheme to agricultural emissions. That's not to say that we don't need to find ways to reduce the 16% of Australia's emissions that are contributed by agriculture. Its just that an emissions trading scheme is probably not the best way to address this.
The report explains why the diet of individual animals, the soil composition and weather systems of individual regions and even the way in which fertilizer is applied can all have a significant impact on the level of emissions by individual farms. Greenhouse gas emissions associated with burning a tonne of coal or a litre of petrol, on the other hand, can be measured both accurately and cheaply.
'The whole point of an emissions trading scheme is accurate measurement of the emissions of individual polluters in order to make them pay for what they emit, but when it comes to agriculture it is neither possible, nor efficient, to accurately measure the emissions of a herd of cows or a paddock of wheat’, said Dr Hugh Saddler one of the reports authors.
‘There is another fundamental problem associated with agriculture in the CPRS. While only 1,000 large polluters from the rest of the economy will be covered, the government is talking about including all 130,000 farm enterprises. When the administrative costs and the compliance costs are combined with the inaccuracies in measuring emissions, the idea of including agriculture in the CPRS just doesn’t stack up’, said Helen King.
