Hot topics  

Monday 21 July 2008 (Updated on Tue 22 July at 4.30pm AEST)

**AUDIO FILES NOW AVAILABLE BELOW**             

BACKGROUND BRIEFING: Farmers prepare to count carbon – but is the science up to it?

BRIEFING DETAILS:
DATE: Tuesday 22 July 2008
START TIME: 11am AEST
VENUE: online
DURATION: 30 minutes

Farmers escaped the pain of carbon taxing in last week’s Green paper and now have five years grace to come up with a workable way of estimating emissions from cropping and grazing. The agricultural sector is a big polluter, second only to power stations, and it will eventually have to come to the emissions trading party. 

It isn’t going to be easy. Gases from cows, soil and trees are much harder to measure and police than what comes out of a smokestack. Scientists are working hard to make sure that by 2013 the farming sector will be able to reduce and trade emissions and still thrive.

where is the science up to and where it is heading on this issue? Issues discussed included:.

• How much will farming have to change to meet emissions standards?
• What methods are currently being developed to help farmers sequester carbon in soil?
• Will Australia have to shrink its grazing sector or can feeding and managing cattle differently reduce their very high methane emissions?
• Where will trees fit on a farm’s carbon balance sheet?

SPEAKERS:
Dr Richard Eckard leads the Greenhouse and Climate Change Program at The University of Melbourne (Jointly with the Victorian Dept of Primary Industries) and has been working on the technical advisory committee to the Commonwealth Department of Climate Change.
Listen to Richard's presentation (mp3) | PowerPoint (pdf) | transcript (pdf)

Professor Peter Grace is the professor of Global Change at Queensland University of Technology, and Adjunct Professor at the W.K. Kellogg Biological Station of Michigan State University in the United States. He is an expert carbon cycling, greenhouse gas emissions and agricultural risk management. He gave his talk from the US.
Listen to Peter's presentation (mp3) | PowerPoint (pdf) | transcript (pdf)

Dr Philip Polglase from CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems is an expert in forest ecology and carbon cycling. Listen to Philip's presentation (mp3) | PowerPoint (pdf) | transcript (pdf)

Listen to the Q&A session (mp3)

Follow the full presentation here

For further information, interview requests or queries phone the AusSMC on (08) 8207 7415 or email us.