Canada is accused of playing an environmental shell game when it argues the country should get credit for carbon stored in farmland.
Jo Dufay, a climate change activist for Greenpeace Canada, also said farmers are being misled into thinking they are a major part of the solution to meeting Canada’s commitment to greenhouse gas reductions.
“I appreciate that for many in the agricultural community, these are hard times and the government seems to be talking about some kind of compensation for contributing to greenhouse gas reduction through carbon sinks,” she said.
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“But it is a false promise and not a solution to either farm income or greenhouse gas reduction.”
Dufay said carbon stored in farmland and forests is eventually released back into the atmosphere when land is worked, crops grown and trees cut.
“It is at best a temporary storage and a false promise,” Dufay said.
At the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association, environmental affairs manager Peggy Strankman said the agricultural industry has never argued that carbon sinks are a permanent answer to greenhouse gas reductions.
She said some carbon is stored long-term, but it is true that in some cases it is only a temporary removal of carbon from the atmosphere.
“We can store a fair amount and certainly reduce carbon emissions by moving from cultivated acres to permanent forage or summerfallow to no-till,” she said.
“But we’ve never pitched this as being permanent storage, a permanent or complete solution. We think it is part of the solution.”
Greenpeace argued that reducing the emission of greenhouse gases such as carbon monoxide is the only way to slow global warming and climate change.
It said government demands for carbon sink credits are simply a way for Canada to avoid tougher emission control rules.
Deputy prime minister Herb Gray will have a different message when he attends a climate change negotiating session in Bonn, Germany, this week.
Gray will be insisting that Canada be given credit for the ability of its farmland and forests to take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.
In the climate change protocol negotiated in Kyoto, Japan in 1997, Canada agreed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions six percent below 1990 levels by 2012. In the years since, Canada’s emissions have actually increased.
A coalition of agricultural and soil conservation organizations supported Anderson, calling on the government to stick to its insistence that carbon sinks be credited.
“Agricultural soils are part of the solution to help Canada meet its target in greenhouse gas reductions,” said the coalition, which included the CCA, the Canadian Fertilizer Institute, Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association and the Soil Conservation Council of Canada.
“If we are expected to reduce emissions, we believe we should also be given credit for what we take out of the atmosphere,”Strankman said.
