Climate Pact Thoughts

Those that have followed my blog for some time know that I hold two positions in regards to global warming.

The first is that linking CO2 emissions directly to climate change is not supported by any science that is not at best cooked. This is a little stronger than my first posts, but the science has proven to be increasingly spurious. I consider it a mistake in any case and have been proven correct inasmuch as the case is weakened daily by every weather shift that fails to conform to the apparent hoped for trend line. If I erred it was in underestimating how quickly Mother Nature would repudiate this misbegotten stepchild of climate science.

The second is that CO2 emissions are hugely important as they are produced by human activities and clearly need to be diverted. In fact they are proof that our technology is not sustainable in the face of rising populations. I further recognized that the solution had to come with the globe’s farmers, not our engineers.

This led to the discovery of the scant literature on biochar or as then known, terra preta. I immediately recognized the importance of this technology and proposed a method that subsistence farmers could use to implement the method. My immediate recognition came about because of prior research on solid crystalline acids that also led directly to the conjecture that activated carbon would be beneficial to horticulture a decade or more earlier. At the time I understood that formal introduction of such methods would be both uneconomic and difficult because of the long product development cycle in agriculture. I was startled and pleased to discover that the Amazonian Indios had been conducting field trials for thousands of years. This made the methodology battle ready with only trivial naysayers to slow it down. In the past two years it has been advancing five steps at a time as more and more pot tests and field tests are been conducted everywhere.

This conference brings biochar up front and center for the first time and it will now weigh heavily in all further discussions.

If all parties agree to advance the acceptance of biochar as a carbon sequestration option on a global basis, then the battle is over but for the details. The rest is shouting in the wind.

Canada and the USA can meet all their obligations by converting their agricultural subsidy programs into sequestration credit programs, and so can Europe. In those cases they restore the soils to their natural fertility as a bonus. China and India both also benefit hugely by following this protocol. The moment they do that they can demand the same standards from their importers. Sooner or later it will all work itself out.

Climate pact: What kind of deal can emerge in Copenhagen?

http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Climate_pact_What_kind_of_deal_can_emerge_in_Copenhagen_999.html

Paris (AFP) June 14, 2009

Official smiles and breezy confidence were firmly on display after the latest round of UN talks that aim to build a landmark treaty on climate change.

But only six months are left for completing a deal as fiendish in its complexity as it is unprecedented in ambition. Can it be done?

In the corridors of Bonn's Maritim Hotel, where the 12-day round unfolded under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), many delegates seemed to have quietly acknowledged the impossibility of sewing everything up in December in Copenhagan.

That goal is enshrined in the "Bali Road Map," laid down at a global gathering in December 2007.

The vision is to set curbs on emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases beyond 2012, with intermediate targets for 2020 that would be ratcheted up all the way to 2050.

UNFCCC Executive Secretary Yvo de Boer insisted on Friday a "comprehensive" agreement could be reached in Copenhagen, and one "that can give a strong and definite answer to the (...) climate alarm that has been ringing loudly over the past few years."

European Union negotiator Artur Runge-Metzger said "a ratifiable treaty" was still in sight, and Jonathan Pershing, for the United States, likewise reiterated his endorsement of this aim.

If so, a mountain of work lies ahead.

A 50-page draft negotiation blueprint has exploded to more than 200 pages after countries stuffed it with rival proposals, and may expand even further in informal talks in August.

There has been no progress on the biggest question, of how to share the burden of future emissions cuts -- and scientists say the proposals that are on the table fall dismally short of what is needed.

No agreement is in sight over helping poor countries to cope with the impacts of climate change and procure clean technology to avoid becoming the carbon culprits of the future.

"I don't see anyone coming forward with anything that could prepare the ground for a breakthrough," said Kim Carstensen of green group WWF. "What I see is the reverse, I see ground being prepared for a battle."

Just as worryingly, ideas are only now starting to be aired about an existential question -- the legal status of the future agreement -- which could revive friction between the United States and supporters of the Kyoto Protocol.

Nor has anyone broached the explosive problems of what teeth to build into the treaty for non-compliance, and how to punish Australia, Canada, Japan and other countries that are likely to overshoot their 2012 emissions targets under Kyoto.

Michael Zammit Cutajar, in charge of one of the two big negotiation groups, said he was unfazed that his draft text had ballooned, arguing breakthroughs traditionally come in the very final days or hours of haggling.

"This is like the evolutionary process in reverse. The Big Bang comes at the end," he quipped.

If past experience of climate negotiations is any guide, a breakthrough depends on movement at the very top.

There are some good opportunities to provide this before Copenhagen, with the G8 summit in Italy in July, which will also be attended by the heads of emerging giant economies, followed by an expected UN climate summit in September in New York.

Rumours abound, too, of preparations for accommodating President Barack Obama in Copenhagen, although whether this is in the role of deal-maker or deal-blesser is unclear.

And past experience of climate negotiations also says that breakthroughs never dot 'i's or cross 't's.

The Kyoto Protocol, for instance, was born as a framework agreement in 1997 after exhausting talks.

But another four years were needed to complete its rulebook. Then footdragging by Russia over ratification meant the treaty eventually took effect in February 2005.

Karstensen and others said a likely scenario at Copenhagen would be a deal on core issues, followed by further negotiations to fill in the details.

Slippage from the "Bali Road Map" deadline would be acceptable, provided the core deal was strong and the follow-on talks wrapped up quickly, said Karstensen.

One major worry, though, is a gap between the end of 2012 and when the treaty would take effect, which could wreck the carbon markets created under Kyoto.

"A full and ratifiable treaty would have to emerge by the end of 2010. Later than that, I don't see it working," said Karstensen.

Best Practise for Biochar

It has taken less than two years, but many voices are now been heard on the biochar front in support of using the method as a way to best sequester carbon and plausibly gain an advantage from the effort.

There continues to be some lingering concern as to the method’s efficiency for all prospective soils. My answer to that is very simple. First every farmer will want to do his own conformation of the process. Thus after one is able to convert available biomass into biochar one starts with a one acre patch or strip. This allows you to draw biomass from a much larger field and to readily concentrate the input. That way you can take it up to as high as fifteen percent and to test it out over three years. You can also then continue to broadly augment the remaining fields with a very low level of input to commence the process.

Once you understand the effect of fifteen percent, spread the acre out over two acres and repeat the process. This brings the concentration down below seven percent. Again evaluate the effect on the crops over three years. At this point, you fields are likely at one to two percent if you had plenty of biomass to work with and you have a fair comfort about were you want to end up at. At that point you adjust the two acres to the level you want.

This simple process allows the farmer to develop his own confidence in the process and never risk any thing more than a single acre if that. It is a lot less scary than using roundup, and I assure you that most farmers acted just like I described with that. After all, few could read the related scientific literature very well.

This editorial confirms that others are connecting the dots when it comes to biochar. No one has picked up yet on my method of forming an earthen kiln from dried out corn stover and using the roots to form the kiln walls. I suspect that was the method used to expand its usage by the Amazonian Indios. It was not overly necessary in the garden itself but its application would generate a best result for little extra effort. In the fields however, it was a necessity. Maize and cassava were the two principal crops according to the archeological record over the time periods involved and maize is otherwise a surprise in this environment.

Most likely, state taxation drove its adoption and the establishment of larger fields. Thus a method that also preserved fertility was core to the economy.

We so far have no cultural confirmation of the three sisters culture used in North America and little in the archeological record, but it seems reasonable that method also dominated there.

The reason that I bring this topic up is that a family with only the land and no significant tools for making biochar can easily make it with their bare hands if it is necessary and thus secure a patch of fertile tropical soils to themselves. Therefore, it is simple to encourage this technology world wide. In fact, it is the farmers already practicing industrial farming who will likely have the most difficulty in implementing this method.


Editorial

Nature Reports Climate Change

Published online: 2 June 2009 doi:10.1038/climate.2009.53

Best practice for biochar

Olive Heffernan

http://www.nature.com/climate/2009/0906/full/climate.2009.53.html

With just six months left to go, all sectors are vying for a place at the table in Copenhagen, where negotiators will begin sketching what should eventually become an all-embracing climate deal. While some players are seeking assistance in adapting to the impacts of climate change (page 68), others are hoping to stake a claim in the emerging green economy (page 72).

The prospects of the latter are bright for those involved in the nascent biochar industry, which plans to sequester vast quantities of carbon in soil using an ancient Amazonian agricultural practice and to sell the latent emissions as credits on a global carbon market.

The concept is simple: if terra preta — or charcoal-enriched soil — was re-created globally, as much as 6 billion tonnes of CO2 could be prevented from entering the atmosphere annually, a substantial fraction of the 8–10 billion tonnes emitted each year by humans. Proponents, who include no small number of world-class climate scientists, say that burying biochar not only would slow the rate of warming, it would enhance soil fertility — and the charcoal-making process could produce sustainable biofuels to boot.

In late May, the United Nations released its draft negotiating text for Copenhagen (UNFCCC document FCCC/AWGLCA/2009/8), which specified that biochar should be considered eligible as an advanced mitigation option under a post-Kyoto treaty. Should negotiators — who will discuss the document over the coming weeks in Bonn and again in Copenhagen — find the suggestion favourable, the biochar industry will unavoidably become a legitimate source of tradable carbon credits.

And why not? Burying biochar could be the closest contender yet for a silver-bullet solution to climate change (Guardian 13 March 2009), in which case its deployment can't come quickly enough. And unlike some of the more technologically complex methods of sequestering greenhouse gases, such as carbon capture and storage, it could, in theory at least, be easily adopted worldwide through small- and medium-scale operations.

But despite its astounding potential, caution is warranted in implementing biochar on any sizeable scale. Though re-creating terra preta sounds simple, recent research suggests that modern-day soils may respond less well to the treatment and that the carbon may escape sooner than anticipated. On these questions alone, all of the evidence is not in. Yet we clearly don't have the luxury of time to answer them definitively.

The recent exuberance over biochar is reminiscent of the earlier fervour over biofuels, as critics have been eager to highlight (Guardian 24 March 2009). But both face some of the same problems — most controversially, the need for land should carbon credits command a high enough price — suggesting there is scope here to learn from previous errors.

What's now needed is an international code of best practice for biochar that evolves as knowledge comes in. For a start, this would clearly define acceptable land-use policy for plantations, as well as a lower limit on carbon sequestered from those claiming certification. Inclusion in a global climate deal will certainly speed the adoption of biochar, but it can also help ensure that this solution is applied responsibly.

Biochar Breakthrough

Sometimes the world does the right thing for the wrong reason. Having this conference support biochar as a way to save the climate is quickly turning out to be a silly rational. But no matter, if that is what it takes to get it done.

Biochar will sequester all the CO2 we have put into the atmosphere if every farmer on earth gets involved and uses biochar to rebuild his soils. It will take generations but in the end we will have healthy fertile soils everywhere and vast tracts of new land will have entered cultivation.

We need a global conference focused on implementing biochar in every soil. This will be a good start.

Eighteen months ago, when I first discovered the antiquity of biochar, I understood immediately what it meant and posted extensively. Few understood the underlying mechanism. That knowledge is slowly percolating into our tool kit and everyone has accepted now easy it is to make work. A few still tout the biofuel aspect but that is an unnecessary complication and a likely misstep. Other excellent methods have emerged and we still have access to primitive methods.

During the last eighteen months, biochar has gone from total obscurity to now been on the verge of been a household name. The recent National Geographic and the apparent fallout from this conference is now getting the story out with the full weight of the media.

This press release is a bit of an overstatement still but I heartily support the sentiments. Every farmer needs to know about biochar and needs to know how to use it.

http://globalclimatesolutions.org/

Breakthrough from the Black: Biochar to be Considered for Kyoto Status

11 12 2008
From the INTERNATIONAL BIOCHAR INITIATIVE

[From the Editor: Biochar may be one of the most promising tools humanity now has to mitigate and adapt to global climate change. And now it's being considered for inclusion as a Clean Development Project (CDM) by the United Nations Convention on Climate Change (UNCCC). The CDM is the central component of the Kyoto Protocol that allows for developed countries (so-called "Annex II" countries) to offset their emissions in developing countries through specific projects that must meet be approved by the UNCCC.

The efficacy of the Kyoto protocol to combat climate change has come under increasing scrutiny as decreases in emissions have proven dismally inadequate in light of recent suggestions that we may already be above dangerous levels of anthropogenic emissions. A clear-eyed and critical analysis of the Kyoto Protocol's strengths and weaknesses are needed in order to move forward with a truly effective international agreement that will set the Earth on course to drive down atmospheric CO2 levels to 350 ppm by 2050 (as the best science now indicates is necessary to avoid dangerous climate destabilization.)

Clearly, the consideration of biochar by the UNCCC is a monumentous achievement and should help drive us toward a much more serious and sensible investigation of what will be necessary for a post-Kyoto agreement. The cause has been taken up by United Nations Conference to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) and is a decisive step toward widespread development and implementation of carbon-negative biochar production.

Below is the press release, in full, by the International Biochar Initiative. (Feel free to send them email expressing support or express it with a donation to the IBI. Congratulations to all who were involved in spearheading this most important achievement! -RDH.]

IBI Announces Success in Having Biochar Considered as a Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation Tool

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: December 10, 2008

POZNAN, Poland, December 10, 2008 - The International Biochar Initiative (IBI) announces that the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) has submitted a proposal to include biochar as a mitigation and adaptation technology to be considered in the post-2012-Copenhagen agenda of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). A copy of the proposal is posted on the IBI website at

The International Biochar Initiative (IBI) .

Biochar is a fine-grained, highly porous charcoal that helps soils retain nutrients and water. The carbon in biochar resists degradation and can sequester carbon in soils for hundreds to thousands of years.
IBI Executive Director Debbie Reed said, “The UNCCD submission is a great success, and is paralleled by a lot of very positive discussions and interest in biochar amongst country delegates as well as observers of the process.”

The UNCCD, a sister convention to the UNFCCC, has identified biochar as a unique opportunity to address soils as a carbon sink. According to the submission document: “The world’s soils hold more organic carbon than that held by the atmosphere as CO2 and vegetation, yet the role of the soil in capturing and storing carbon dioxide is often one missing information layer in taking into consideration the importance of the land in mitigating climate change.”

UNCCD proposes that biochar must be considered as a vital tool for rehabilitation of dryland soils: “The fact that many of the drylands soils have been degraded means that they are currently far from saturated with carbon and their potential to sequester carbon may be very high … making the consideration of Biochar, as a strategy for enhancing soils carbon sequestration, imperative.”

UNC CD also cites the ability of biochar to address multiple climate and development concerns while avoiding the disadvantages of other bioenergy technologies that deplete soil organic matter (SOM). IBI Executive Director Debbie Reed said, “Pyrolysis systems that produce biochar can provide many advantages. Biochar restores soil organic carbon and soil fertility, reduces emissions from agriculture, and can provide clean, renewable energy. Conventional biomass energy competes with soil building needs for crop residue feedstocks, but biochar accommodates both uses.”

Reduced deforestation is another biochar advantage cited by the UNCCD in their submitted proposal for including biochar in carbon trading mechanisms: “The carbon trade could provide an incentive to cease further deforestation; instead reforestation and recuperation of degraded land for fuel and food crops would gain magnitude.”

Craig Sams, founder of Green & Black’s Organic Chocolate, is in Poznan to help educate delegates about biochar. Sams believes that the climate and ancillary benefits of biochar are so great that biochar systems should be eligible for double credits. Sams said, “Adding the rewards for abandoning carbon emitting practices such as slash and burn cultivation, deforestation and wood fire cooking, to the rewards for adopting biochar practices in agriculture, forestry and cooking, ought to qualify for double credits.”

UNCCD proposes to include biochar in the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), and to revise the rules to account for biochar as a permanent means of carbon capture. UNCCD also proposes adjusting the carbon offset rules to allow greater financial flows to help developing countries increase soil organic matter with biochar.

Biochar has one important additional advantage over other land use carbon sequestration projects - carbon sequestration through biochar is easy to quantify. It is also relatively permanent. The UNCCD says: “Potential drawbacks such as difficulty in estimating greenhouse gas removals and emissions resulting from land use, land use change and forestry (LULUCF), or destruction of sinks through forest fire or disease do not apply to biochar soil amendments.”

Overall, the potential magnitude of biochar as a climate mitigation tool is great. IBI Board Chair Dr. Johannes Lehmann said, “We are pleased that the UNCCD has recognized the potential of biochar. Results from IBI’s preliminary model to estimate the potential of biochar carbon sequestration show that biochar production from agriculture and forestry residues can potentially sequester one gigaton of carbon in the world’s soils annually by 2040. Using the biochar energy co-product to displace fossil fuel energy can approximately double the carbon impact of biochar alone.”

IBI’s objective for the remainder of the UN meeting at Poznan is to interest more countries in proposing biochar for consideration as a mitigation and adaptation technology in the post-2012 Copenhagen process of the UNFCCC.

About IBI

The International Biochar Initiative (IBI) is a registered non-profit organization that serves as an international platform for the exchange of information and activities in support of biochar research, development, demonstration and commercialization. IBI participants comprise a consortium of researchers, commercial entities, policy makers, development agents, farmers and gardeners and others committed to supporting sustainable biochar production and utilization systems that remove carbon from the atmosphere and enhance the earth’s soils.

The International Biochar Initiative (IBI)