Australian Carbon Farming Passes

After moving through the House of Representatives earlier this summer (see Carbon Farming Moves Through Australian Parliament, 6/27), Australia's Carbon Farming Initiative (CFI), designed to promote agroforestry offset projects, has been passed by the Australian Senate. Approved with minor amendments, the bill must now be rubber-stamped by the House before it becomes law. Importantly, the CFI is unlikely to make a significant impact until Parliament passes a more comprehensive carbon package which would introduce a limited carbon tax in July 2012. Analysts expect most CFI investments to flow toward reforestation projects--an offset methodology for "environmental plantings" is currently under review. Soil carbon storage and biochar are also likely to be eligible under the CFI, although necessary methodologies have yet to be considered. The CFI will be the world's first national agroforestry carbon credit system.

FCPF Launches Carbon Fund

Last month, the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF), part of the World Bank Group, officially launched its Carbon Fund to support REDD+ projects. In the REDD+ universe, the FCPF is envisioned as a primary vehicle for delivering funds to developing countries for forest conservation activities (including reforestation and afforestation). The Facility has been supporting national preparations for REDD+ participation through its Readiness Fund, which has financial commitments totaling $232 million, and now the FCPF will be able to distribute payments for REDD+ program implementation through the $215 million Carbon Fund. However, these figures represent money pledged and committed, rather than delivered, to the FCPF. Furthermore, REDD+ still lacks the core institutional machinery to enable payments in return for emissions reductions. As is often the case with REDD+, there is less here than meets the eye.

Another Important BECCS Report

The IEA has released a major study on the potential of BECCS technologies to achieve negative emissions, the second such report published this year (see New Report on BECCS, 4/17). As with the earlier report, this study is strongly supportive of greater investments in BECCS research and possible deployment. The IEA study considers six different BECCS technologies based on technical (physical), realizable (capital), and economic (market) potentials. Based on these assessments, the study concludes that BECCS used in combination with gasification electricity production, and BECCS combined with biodiesel production, offer the greatest CDR potential: by 2050, each of these technology pathways could generate more than 3 Gt CO2 eq. per year in negative emissions. Unsurprisingly, the IEA views the price of carbon as "the key driver" for widespread adoption of BECCS systems. (In line with this, the IEA is currently pushing for inclusion of BECCS under the CDM.)

Bill Clinton Champions White Roofs

Former President Bill Clinton has declared white roofs "the single best idea to jumpstart job creation." Interestingly, he frames the issue solely in terms of job creation and energy savings, with no mention (or awareness?) of its potential for albedo modification. This is smart politics, since appealing to economic self-interest in a time of sclerotic growth is a much surer way to garner support for white roofs than trumpeting their global climate benefits. Recall that Energy Secretary Steven Chu tried this latter tack in 2009, and was rewarded with ridicule for his efforts.

Climate Change, Security, and Small Island States

On July 20, the UN Security Council held an open debate on the subject of climate change and risks to international security. The topic was introduced by Germany, which currently holds the rotating presidency of the Security Council. Following on from earlier efforts to raise the issue of climate security within the Council, Germany sought to begin an ongoing dialogue on the security risks posed by climate change, in particular the threat of sea-level rise and dangers to food supplies. Discussion also focused on the possible future need for UN "green helmets" for deployment to violent conflicts around the world caused or exacerbated ("threat-multiplied") by climate change.

Germany was strongly supported by the Pacific Small Island Developing States grouping. The chairman of this organization, President Marcus Stephen of Nauru, urged in a July 18 op-ed in the New York Times that "the Security Council should join the General Assembly in recognizing climate change as a threat to international peace and security. It is a threat as great as nuclear proliferation or global terrorism." Yet he went on to write that "Negotiations to reduce emissions should remain the primary forum for reaching an international agreement." Climate engineering was not mentioned as a potential strategy.

The existential threat faced by small island states as a result of global warming and rising seas is more than sufficient reason to explore geoengineering as an additional climate policy option. Emissions mitigation, even if deep cuts were somehow achieved over the next decades, will not be enough to prevent the demise of low-lying island states such as Nauru, the Marshall Islands, and the Maldives. In the absence of climate intervention, such countries will cease to exist in any meaningful sense. When rising sea levels are treated as a matter of war and peace before the UN Security Council, national leaders compare their climate predicaments to nuclear proliferation and terrorism, and the future existence of entire nation-states is in doubt, surely it is appropriate to consider all possible solutions. Small island developing states, and representative organizations such as the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), ought to be at the forefront of diplomatic efforts to jump-start research into geoengineering.

Russian Government Sponsoring Scientific Conference on Geoengineering

This year's Problems of Adaptation to Climate Change (PACC-2011) conference, scheduled for November in Moscow, will focus heavily on geoengineering as a response to the climate crisis. One of its main sections is titled "Research of Opportunities for Climate Stabilization Using New Technologies," and is co-chaired by Yuri Izrael (SRM researcher and associate of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin). PACC-2011 is being organized by the Russian government through its Federal Service for Hydrometeorology and Environmental Monitoring. Official support for this scientific conference runs counter to recent economic (see BP Expands in Russian Arctic, 1/16) and military moves to exploit the warming Russian Arctic, and thus represents a continuation of Russia's de facto policy of ambivalence toward geoengineering (see Where Do the Major Powers Stand?, 12/5/10).

Research Moving Ahead in the UK

The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), a British government funding agency, has released initial funding for two geoengineering research projects. The first is a stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI) project known as SPICE, or Stratospheric Particle Injection for Climate Engineering. EPSRC has provided £1.6m to support particle research, construction of a 1 km pipe-balloon testbed delivery system, climate intervention computer modeling, and design of a deployable 20-25 km pipe-balloon system. SPICE is managed jointly by scientists at Bristol, Cambridge, and Reading Universities. The second project is the Integrated Assessment of Geoengineering Proposals (IAGP), a public education and outreach effort overseen by researchers from Leeds University. EPSRC has provided £1.7m to the IAGP project, results of which will inform the testbed component of SPICE. Once again, the British government is leading the way in public funding of geoengineering research.