How Saskatchewan’s new greenhouse gas legislation will affect agriculture is still unknown, but the industry will figure in both sides of the emission equation.
Agriculture is responsible for 17 percent of the province’s emissions, according to 2007 data, but it also offers offset opportunities such as carbon sequestration, agri-forestry and renewable energy.
Kim Graybiel, director of corporate policy and planning at the environment ministry, said the industry’s role will be worked out as the regulations to the bill, introduced last week, are developed.
Consultations are expected to take place during summer and the legislation and regulations will return to the legislature in the fall.
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The bill, An Act Respecting the Management and Reduction of Greenhouse Gases and Adaptation to Climate Change, sets out how large emitters such as the oil and gas and electricity industries would pay carbon compliance fees into a fund that they could later access to help pay for technology to lower emissions.
The tentative plan is to charge companies emitting more than 100,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide annually a levy beginning at $15 per tonne. The cost would increase over time.
Companies, known as regulated emitters, would have the option to pay into the fund and perhaps get some money back, or buy offsets in an international cap-and-trade system.
Environment minister Nancy Heppner said if the fund option is attractive enough, the money would stay in the province.
But these emitters, along with smaller non-regulated emitters, can also take measures to reduce levels before they pay the levies, and those include acquiring offsets such as agricultural soil sinks and wetlands.
Agriculture is considered a non-regulated emitter.
In some cases, farmers with both livestock and grain operations may use one to offset the other.
Graybiel said most agricultural emissions are methane from livestock operations or nitrous oxide from tillage.
He said it’s likely a series of protocols would be developed to encourage best practices to control emissions. New methods of manure management could help control emissions while greater use of zero-till could store more carbon.
“There have to be opportunities for early adoptees (of no-till) to get recognition,” Graybiel said. “We haven’t set the time frame. We will have to look back a number of years.”
Alberta set 2002 as its base.
Graybiel also said systems to register farmers, record data and verify operations have to be put in place.
Livestock feed rations could be adjusted to reduce methane, he said.
“We have to work with the industry to come up with appropriate ways to make this happen,” he said.
The province also announced last week it had agreed to negotiate with Ottawa an equivalency agreement that would see Saskatchewan retain carbon levies.
If that agreement is reached, Graybiel said Ottawa would have to approve of offset credits developed in the province.
Graybiel said any attempt to reduce emissions results in a cost. If the carbon price is set high enough, selling offsets could be an attractive option for farmers and landowners.
“We know right now about eight million tonnes of carbon are being stored in agricultural soils in Saskatchewan,” he added. “Agriculture has told me that number is probably significantly lower than what it really is.”
Saskatchewan has adopted the federal target of reducing emissions 20 percent below 2006 levels by 2020. That differs from the 32 percent below 2004 levels on which the government campaigned.
