The National Greenhouse Accounts and Land Clearing: Do the numbers stack up?
by Andrew Macintosh, at The Australia Institute,
published January 2007.
Australia’s capacity to meet its Kyoto target is contingent on a reduction in emissions from land clearing. Government projections indicate that if land use change emissions are at their 1990 levels in 2010, Australia’s total emissions will be 27 per cent above 1990 levels, meaning Australia will exceed its Kyoto target by 19 per cent.
The National Greenhouse Accounts suggest that between 1990 and 2004 there was a 59 per cent reduction in emissions from land use change, which has ensured that Australia’s total emissions have increased by only 2.3 per cent. Approximately 70 per cent of the decline in land use change emissions is attributed to a fall in the rate of
land clearing in Queensland. The Federal Government has relied on the decrease in land clearing to justify its claim that Australia ‘remains on track’ to meet its Kyoto target.
Data published by the Statewide Landcover and Trees Study (SLATS) in Queensland raise doubts about the accuracy of the estimates of land clearing in the National Greenhouse Accounts. For example, the total amount of land clearing in Queensland identified under SLATS between 1989/90 and 2000/01 is approximately 50 per cent
higher than the amount estimated by the Federal Government’s National Carbon Accounting System (NCAS) between 1990 and 2001. There are also significant differences in the land clearing trends identified by SLATS and NCAS, with peaks in clearing shown in the SLATS data in the late 1990s and early 2000s not evident in
NCAS results…
Read the complete report here: http://www.tai.org.au/documents/downloads/WP93.pdf
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
As a past member of the NGGI Consultative Panel on Landuse Change and Forestry, and a current member of the SLATS Committee, I can only describe this as a standard piece of ACF funded spin, masquerading as scientific inquiry. The Australia Institute is funded indirectly by the ACF.
As for the discrepancy in recorded cleared areas between the national accounts and SLATS one need only mention two words, WOODY WEEDS.
SLATS detects the removal of them while greenhouse accounting has no brief to be measuring the loss of Lantana, Rubber Vine etc.
But this is not to say that the NGGI accounts are faultless. They are, in fact, a crock of the proverbial. But most of this is a direct consequence of the gonzo logic of the Eurospivs who would seek to thrust their self interest upon the rest of the world.
A good example is the stumps all over my property that still have their carbon very much intact but which, under the “Kyoto Ugly” accounting regime, are deemed to have emitted their carbon back in 1927 when my grandfather was forced to cut the trees down.
Another example is the paddocks that had 15% canopy of widely spaced shade trees from the 1940’s to 1990 which, if I were now to allow to regenerate to a closed forest, I would get no credit for because it already fell within the broad threshhold of a forest. So I could increase the carbon sink by more than 80% and get no credit.
Macintosh’s concern about the need to control the clearing of regrowth has no basis in carbon accounting because the carbon being removed in that process has only recently been absorbed by the same forest. He cant have it both ways. If the emission from cutting down regrowth is included then the previous sequestration of carbon in the regrowth trees must also be counted for a net nil outcome.
And a net nil outcome is a rather apt description of Macintosh’s little beat up.
It’s an interesting one this one. An interesting case study in both the faustian bargain and the lifeboat dilemma. Ian’s mind at supercomputer speed quickly assesses the issues at stake and the range of satanic foes – the AGO, the Queensland guvmint, the AGW crowd, assorted spivs, and the evil green forces. Who does he hate more. Which is the lesser evil. What’s worth less to the final outcome. What is the final outcome. And does it suit me.
And it’s very interesting in what final analysis you come up with who cops it. Ian has quickly decided it’s a beatup and goes into a diversionary rant about how much he hates the accounting rules and greenie funded lefty-think tanks (and maybe the rules are a bit crappy too) but alas misses the point.
Of course most people reading this won’t have a clue what it’s all about and whether it matters at all. Who should you side with – so confusing and the Australian government press release all sounds very impressive? And Queenslanders are always such hicks.
But forgetting the science for a while – reading the report, seems one side returned phone calls, one didn’t. But could be tricky Australian Institute propaganda – so we need to be careful. One issued a broadside press release one didn’t.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200701/s1829071.htm
But just for a moment consider Figure 2 in http://www.tai.org.au/documents/downloads/WP93.pdf
What would it mean if the Qld figures were right? Might have to think where that would leave us inventory and Kyoto-wise if the Qld figures were right. In all the excitement I’ve forgotten whether it was it was 5 shots or 6 – so you have to ask yourself do you feel lucky.
But why bother – Qld numbers can’t be right can they? – so let’s save ourselves the time of thinking about that and rest easy. And that analysis isn’t going to happen.
So let’s leave the last word to Col Jessup.
A Few Good Men Movie Quotes (1992)
Jack Nicholson (Col. Jessup): Son, we live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Whose gonna do it? You? You, Lt. Weinburg? I have more responsibility here than you could possibly fathom. You weep for Santiago, and you curse the marines. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know. That Santiago’s death, while tragic, probably saved lives. And that my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives. I know deep down in places you don’t talk about at parties, you don’t want me on that wall, you need me on that wall. We use words like honor, code, loyalty. We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something. You use them as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom I provide, then question the manner in which I provide it. I prefer you said thank you, and went on your way, Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a weapon, and stand to post. Either way, I don’t give a damn what you think you are entitled to!
Jack Nicholson (Col. Jessup): You want answers?
Tom Cruise (Kaffee): I think I’m entitled.
Jack Nicholson (Col. Jessup): You want answers?
Tom Cruise (Kaffee): I want the truth!
Jack Nicholson (Col. Jessup): You can’t handle the truth!
The Australia Institute question seems to have already been answered by the SLATS people themselves who have stated that their estimate and the National Carbon Accounting estimates were not directly comparable.
Thus the motivation of the Australia Institute must be questioned, are they seeking just more publicity for themselves or their cause or are they providing “ammunition” for friendly politicians to attack the Government and its agencies.
Perhaps the following comment from the SLATS report should have been included in the Australia Institute’s report:
“Although Australia made a commitment not to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, it undertook to use the Kyoto accounting rules for its national inventory. These rules have strict definitions for forest and for areas to be counted as “deforestation” (conversion of forests to other land use) that are different to those used in National Greenhouse Gas Inventories (NGGIs) reported prior to 2002.
The first NCAS land use change inventory was released in August 2002. Unlike earlier inventories that used remotely sensed areas of tree clearing from SLATS figures for Queensland, the NCAS uses an independent remote sensing program to give a nationally consistent estimate of forest conversion according to Kyoto rules. These rules restrict accounting to a subset of the SLATS broader assessment of woody vegetation change as well as having the objective of strict calendar year change detection, so that the two estimates are not directly comparable. The NCAS framework uses complex modelling to estimate greenhouse gas emissions and sinks for the areas included as “Kyoto lands”.”
from Department of Natural Resources and Mines (2004). Land cover change in Queensland 1988–1991: a Statewide Landcover and Trees Study (SLATS) Report, Dec,2004. Department of Natural Resources and Mines, Brisbane.
http://www.nrw.qld.gov.au/slats/pdf/88-91/slats8891_v13_lowresPPt-14.pdf
Yes Cinders I’m sure that’s correct.
The Feds press release described the Qld analysis as flawed but they were happy to use for earlier inventories. Maybe any old thing is better than nothing hey?
But one of course just wonders why the patterns over the years are SO different – why one system doesn’t seem to do any field work. But hey it’s checked by NASA and none of their spaceships ever explode so they’d know everything hey?
Cinders I’m sure it’s just one of those things. Let’s not worry about it. Probably just the Australia Institute making trouble for the kindly Howard government.
Kaffee, which part of “woody weeds” do you not understand. SLATS is more than capable of detecting weed control activities in remnant grassland ecosystems. And they can, and do, report such activities as “remnant clearing”.
Indeed, if you go to Table 8 of the 2003/2004 Report you will see that non-forest ecosystems have consistently made up 50 to 55% of all Qld clearing since 1988. In 1999-201 this included Tussocky or Tufted Grasses (11.33%), Low Trees <10% foliage cover (11.44%) and Medium Trees <10% foliage cover (27.23%) and Tall Shrubs <10% foliage cover (0.46%).
Furthermore, Table 6 of the 1999-2001 Report showed that 26% of all clearing was on land that was not mapped as woody vegetation in 1990. This table was left out of the 2003-2004 Report but the trend shows a steadily increasing proportion of clearing that is post 1990 (Kyoto cut-off) vegetation.
It is also a fact that much of the remaining so-called remnant forest clearing is Mulga which has been pulled, not removed, on a 15 to 20 year cycle of fodder supply since the 1890’s. This returns very quickly to remnant height and status.
More importantly, as we are now in 2007, some of this mulga is now entering it’s second rotation since 1990. And this country would not show up in the missing Table 6 because the period when it was non-woody vegetation was some time later in the 90’s decade. So it will not be greenhouse relevant but will still be mapped as remnant vegetation.
So could you kindly focus on some issues of substance rather than your little rhetorical indulgence above?
Mega data on mega fires? Its time to add my concerns. I have been defending BRS data in map form for too long.
Although I think one of my Nikons was used once or twice to demonstrate to AFFA (and perhaps other departments) the value of building ‘typical’ type records from ground zero here and there, we have since lost the plot. For instance, if our land care recording science is weak or wrong, ministers cannot say where we are in bushfire loss or in recovery.
Actual timber resources after 50 days of bushfire in Victoria are anyone’s guess.
The 2003 bushfire impact on the ACT that wiped out all of the mature pine plantations and most of the native forests in national parks west of Canberra is not yet accounted for under the BRS system. Our 20/20 vision became a nightmare then.
In detail: My 12 ha hobby farm block in Tasmania near Burnie with a patch of steep bush on one side is shown as forested alongside several others up a deep valley between mixed farms on richer volcanic soil overlay. Let’s say we are only half covered in regrowth stringy bark and half covered in rough grass. However my grass paddock is nothing like the very common button grass country in now reserves on the western side of the island.
http://adl.brs.gov.au/mapserv/intveg/
Web access we once had to this level of magnification for the NW Tas. map used for RFA negotiations seems to have disappeared. The public are currently denied their chance to participate in properly knowing what’s what in forest or scrub cover.
Expanding: Although some of the old APPM pulp wood concession were in a blank square not far away, it was interesting to wonder why there was no data, so I asked Gunns in an email. Guess what? No reply!
We had good records in Tasmania once. During the 1950’s they included an aerial survey of the entire state’s forests in 3 D photography. Commonwealth resource records must reflect our original assets for ongoing science to be meaningful today. Historic values are too often ignored.
Land clearing and forest recovery records must also take account of all naturally occurring dead wood in forms that play a significant role in mutual protection of species and nutrient recycling. No forest is complete with out fungus or wood grubs.
Mega fires are increasing in frequency.
Production targets for new pulp mills must include a balanced return for soils based on forest recoveries after mega fires. This can best be seen by comparing historic Tasmanian records of great forests representing SE Australasia which once reached to the sea in all directions (at the time of first European settlement), to today’s ground cover after recent repeated intense bushfires.
The current fire that started at Tom Groggin on Monday by lightning (damm mother nature) is burning through country that burnt in 2003.
Reports from the front are that the timber that was killed in 2003 is now being consumed as it is well cured, making it a difficult place for fire fighting.
Question is,does this count as one episode of land clearing or two?
Yes Ian I’m sure you’re right. Your knowledge of the issue is most impressive. Probably just the Australia Institute going off half-cocked without checking any facts at all. Let’s not worry about it.
Hmmm I wonder if NSW is happy with NCAS clearing maps? I’m sure they’re accurate. Approved by NASA too you know.
Good choice in the lifeboat dilemma Ian.
The real problem with greenhouse accounting is that there is no full and fair reporting of all fluxes. It is all very well to measure the sources and sinks of carbon released by land clearing but there is no accounting of the off-setting cooling effect of changes in albedo from clearing. And there is no measurement of the warming effects of increased albedo from plantation establishment of native regrowth.
Luke assures us that these considerations are all accounted for in the climate models but has yet to show us a link that would confirm this. More importantly, if these considerations are well enough known to incorporate into the models then why are they not included in a set of accounts that show the net heat budget of each nation?
It is, after all, the changes to the net heat budget of the planet that is the primary concern of the climate worryers.
Its not often you read of the words spoken by Tom Cruise being offered as evidence; personally I think Jack Nicholson was better in “The Pledge”
Ian – I have provided you with the information a number of times but you have problems reading. Lesson from 2006 for 2007 – bad faith and abuse are not rewarded by having links restated. You either get it or you don’t.
Given we have a think called a global circulation system and a planet with more ocean than land I think a heat budget sets of accounts for each nation is quite silly.
Luke would like people to think national heat budgets are silly but they are highly relevant for the future well being of our own children and the delivery of just and equitable outcomes to them. But since when has the green movement really given a toss about intergenerational equity?
The other major deficiency in greenhouse accounting is the absence of recognition of carbon absorption by territorial waters which should, rightfully, be included in national heat budgets.
Australia has 12 million km2 of ocean within it’s exclusive economic zone. No other nation will make any call on it’s tax base to look after that area and no other nation will make any effort to protect it.
We spend billions of dollars each year on a navy to maintain sovereignty over it and to protect it from unsustainable fishing. We also forego considerable revenues to ensure that the resources within it are sustainable.
It is also incontestably part of Australia according to the international law of the sea. So why has it been treated as an international common by the IPCC? Why is it that the carbon absorbed by this part of Australia is not included in our national carbon accounting.
Some could argue that this would be unfair to the Swiss, the Austrians, The Czechs, the Slovaks, the Hungarians and every other nation that does not have any territorial ocean. But these nations also have the luxury of not needing to fund a navy. And this makes a defence budget a whole lot easier to pay for.
If we accept the exclusive responsibility for a large tract of ocean, and if we carry the cost of that responsibility then we must also, exclusively, enjoy the benefits that come with those costs. As should every other maritime nation.
The irony of the current AGW debate is the extent of the hand wringing over the impact of rising sea levels on pacific nations like Tuvalu. Yet, these nations have substantial exclusive territorial oceans.
Tuvalu has an EEZ of 1.3 million km2. And given that the current estimate for carbon absorption by the worlds 361 million km2 of oceans is 2Gt of carbon each year, then each km2 absorbs 5.54 tonnes of carbon.
And that means Tuvalu’s ocean territory is absorbing 7.2 million tonnes of carbon each year. So if a carbon credit system was properly based and assuming credits are valued at US$30/tonne ($39AUD), then Tuvalu would have an annual income of AUD $277 million.
And this could fund capital works of AUD$3.3 billion which would buy and transport more than enough landfill to deal with any sea level rise, with plenty of change.
Their total land area is only 2600 hectares so the entire nation could be raised by one metre with only 26 million cubic metres of fill. And I understand there is bit spare at OK Tedi and Bouganville.
But the fact is that the “oceanically challenged” Eurospiv dominated IPCC has a vested interest in maintaining Tuvalu in a parlous economic and ecological condition.
The question is, why do we put up with such a blatantly biased system?
Pity if CO2 laden water is moved by currents – it all gets mixed around – how are you going to keep track of it all.
Ian imagine this – have a wild flight of fancy and assume you really thought reducing growth of atmospheric CO2 emissions and stabilising CO2 in the global atmosphere was worth doing (just suppose).
Now just suppose in a fit of madness you join the new ultra-conservative no b/s Decent Australia Party that emerged from the property rights movement and that you are now a policy wallah or pseudo-spiv in the new government.
And your’e sitting in Timbuktu at the 20th Conference of Parties meeting representing Aussie – do you reckon you can sell the rest of the world on your CO2/heat attribution grans scheme above. Convince us that Europe, the USA, China and India will vote for it !
Jeez the Australia clause only got in by a whisker you know.
Why would you need to keep track of absorbed carbon after it has been absorbed and recorded as absorbed?
Do you mean the clause in the protocal we will not, and should never have even contemplated signing because the document was fundamentally flawed?
And as for selling the idea of credits for ocean absorption, I would say France would be very supportive due to their vast overseas departments. Indonesia would be very interested, all the pacific nations, all the Caribbean nations, Sri Lanka and all the other Indian Ocean island states, Chile, Japan, Iceland, Malta etc would all have a powerful self interest that is directly at variance with the oceanically challenged europeans.
Well IMHO the Australia clause was a swifty so we could get out of doing anything about energy & transport ( as well as scoring another 8% too). What a deal !
In the end the Feds didn’t ban land clearing or pay any money in compo for doing so. Thanks Qld govt and farmers (suckers).
As for your proposal looks like there’s still a few major emitters to sign up or you don’t have a global deal.
Many things got discussed at Kyoto – the only things you could get in principle approval on where – direct reduction in emissions and new activities started after 1990 – not business as usual. Nobody was going to pay for biosphere background advantages.
Otherwise with the your logic everyone with tundra, permafrost and peat bogs – northern Europe, Canada, US – Alaska, Canada will cop a massive bill for climate feedbacks (more concentrated at the north pole) volatilising gigatons of stored CO2 as the years go on. Don’t think they’ll vote for it somehow. Or perhaps more CO2 emissions from burning and drying rainforests. So you may have just lost Brazil too.
Remember you might be chuffed and all happy with yourself in Aussie but if you don’t get vast majority of the emissions and the big emitting nations in the deal – you ain’t going anywhere. And if atmospheric CO2 doesn’t reduce or stabilise you haven’t achieved anything.
But if you can convince the global community – good luck to you ! I’ll observe your progress.
So it is alright for a bunch of unelected bureaucrats to sign away our sovereignty, and our long term competitive advantages in a glorified workshop? BS.
And there is no need to convince the world. All we need to do is make the rest of Australia aware of the scam. There is no world protocol, remember? Most of the world has not signed Kyoto Ugly, remember?
Nonsense – the bureaucrats are on a very tight political leash and achieved what they were told.
Don’t bung that one on. On the phone constantly.
Of course most of the world has not signed Kyoto and thanks efforts of good citizens such as yourself probably never will. Kyoto was the best they could come up with after integrating all the national positions. A compromise camel. So the lesson is cooperation isn’t forthcoming on this issue.
No need to convince the world. Well of course not if you don’t think it’s a problem. Don’t bother. But if it is a problem well you have to get nations to agree. They’re not to agree to your “interesting” ideas I can assure you. If they don’t agree nothing changes.
So we’ll all simply find out what happens. Hurry on to the observed effects and seeing how we adapt (or not). Will all be most interesting.
You see Ian – I figure nothing will be done except adapt (or not). Worked that out 20 years ago when all this was just starting to get going.
So you’ve seen the science now and decided it’s inadequate or wrong or a scam. I actually don’t think there’s anything anyone could show you ever that would convince you. You’d always say it was caused by something else.
So future generations may be grateful for your insight and lobbying on the issue or they may not. All depends what happens hey? But you won’t be here to worry about it so who cares.
My place is 300m to 150m ASL so I would need a 100m rise in sea level to be presented with a really nice waterfront estuary. I can’t wait.
Even better still, Booring Bay and Indooroopilly would be 80m under water and the ocean would have long since broken through into Lake Eyre and we would have thousands of Km of new waterfront property beside our inland sea. It makes real estate in Oodnadatta look like the best buy there is, and only a short sail from Birdsville.
And then they can desalinate sea water for all their worth for the new port city at Wilcannia, unless of course, it is covered by rainforest by then. We might finally get some decent tidal flush back into the Coorong and get a decent border between the Israelis and Palestinians.
The big issue for Australia is what happens to the hydrological cycle under climate change. Given we’re already hydrologically challenged. I don’t think we know near well enough – what will happen to El Nino – same, more, less, more intense? And will general atmospheric circulation systems and ocean currents change for better or worse.
It is ironic that the tree plantations touted as ‘environmentally friendly’ by the ‘forest’ industry are a major source of greenhouse gases.
Commonsense thinking reveals it all. What happens when you clearfell and burn most of one old-growth forest after another. Then when you replace that native vegetations with the growth of monoculture tree plantations that are harvested every 12 years. Again most of the biomass after each clearfell is piled up and burnt again? More CO2.
Then neglect the maintenance of firebreaks, use napalm like substances to start each burn, light fires in a dryer and dryer climate and often in high windspeeds. Is it not surprising that these ‘controlled burning’ programs get out of control and start major bushfires?
“In 2002 a study conducted by a
group called ‘Timber Workers for Forests’ measured the volumes and species of timber remaining after clearfelling and prior to burning of an old growth coupe in the south. This coupe was typical for this forest type across the State and results showed only 26% of the total timber volume was removed by harvesting contractors. An average of 998 tonnes per ha (97,800 tonnes on this 98 ha coupe) was left to be burnt.
Forestry Tasmania requires that on any given coupe no more than 5 tonnes per ha of commercial wood remains (Green 2002a). Much of the wood remaining on this coupe was minor species sought after as specialty timbers for high grade applications,
however they are listed as ‘non-commercial’ by FT (Green 2002a). Not only is the non-utilisation of such timber wasteful and results in the harvesting of further areas to meet demand, but burning this ‘waste’ releases large amounts of greenhouse gasses….
International greenhouse response – changes to the overall carbon sink, In relation to climate change, the Governments acknowledge the need, identified in the National Greenhouse Response Strategy, to manage forests so as to maintain or increase their ‘carbon sink’ capacity and to minimise the emission of greenhouse gases from forest activities. (National Forest Policy Statement, 1992) Several greenhouse gas issues emerge from the practices of clearfelling and
conversion of native forest to plantation.
The carbon store of a mature forest is not replaced by short rotation tree crops the
volume of above ground bio-mass in a mature native forest is far greater than that of a plantation). The soil carbon storage diminishes over time, particularly as replacement plantations are harvested on second or third rotation.
According to the Australian Greenhouse Office, the estimated total biomass for Tasmania’s forests in 2001 was 721million tonnes (FPB 2002b).”
Uniting Church Report
+ see: http://www.geocities.com/rosserbj/ForestryBurnoffs.html