Committee on Climate Change Report The Future For Farming And Land Use

[GeorgeK]

If the quoted '30,000 hec per year' of new planting is correct, each new plantation might be grabbing something like 100,000-200,000 tonnes of carbon (dry weight of timber) per year.
So the maths could equal......
But.... only while they're young and growing. 100 years later...where is all that carbon?
Meantime, new runways still being built.

The headlines are that maybe we farmers aren't going to be too bent out of shape,
but the whole house of cards is still built on no foundations whatsoever.

with the US able to elect Trumpty, what hope is there?

Trees won't begin to take much carbon in until they are properly going in 10-20 years time. This won't be in time to prevent the melting of perma frost, methane release and runaway climate change. Building organic matter on tired arable starts absorbing co2 immediately

 

[andyt87]

You'd swear it was livestock that were invented in the 1940s not increase of vehicle and aeroplanes during the war and eventual adoption by the public

 

[renewablejohn]

Doubt whether that amount of trees will actually replace the carbon lost due to ash dieback for at least 20 years.

 

[jondear]

The figures I saw yesterday are shocking the US produces 16% of world's C02 .China 27%
UK 1.1% .How the hell is this tiny island going to make any difference on climate change without the big players involved!
Just sacrifice our agriculture . Meanwhile carry on as before !

 

[puppet]

China could do something if the climate really was an emergency like the coronavirus. They have just stopped millions of people going on holiday for something which has only killed a few so far and will have been surpassed by their road deaths this week.

 

[B'o'B]

China could do something if the climate really was an emergency like the coronavirus. They have just stopped millions of people going on holiday for something which has only killed a few so far and will have been surpassed by their road deaths this week.

from reading this thread probably the best thing China could do is let the people travel and let us all get thinned out a bit!

 

[Surgery]

China could do something if the climate really was an emergency like the coronavirus. They have just stopped millions of people going on holiday for something which has only killed a few so far and will have been surpassed by their road deaths this week.

Bet we haven’t banned any Chinese coming over from those areas thou!

 

[egbert]

Trees won't begin to take much carbon in until they are properly going in 10-20 years time. This won't be in time to prevent the melting of perma frost, methane release and runaway climate change. Building organic matter on tired arable starts absorbing co2 immediately

Surely that’s great, until the timber is burnt and all that carbon is released back into the atmosphere.
How much carbon could that 30,000 Ha store per year if it’s carefully managed grassland producing food and all the associated benefits that go with it? The associated stock will produce methane, but that will be reabsorbed in around 10 years.

Exactly so with tired arable, but neither that nor grassland can go on absorbing indefinitely.
And it's what will happen in another 100 years that bothers me. The carbon we're storing in timber is lost again, and trying to store ever more in soil just makes it more prone to greater losses when good management slips.

I'm at a loss, and honestly believe that between Trumpty, China, and the developing world, it ain't gonna happen....might as well grow gills.
(well, i won't have to at 1000' , but my kids might have a lot of new neighbours one day)

 

[milkloss]

Surely that’s great, until the timber is burnt and all that carbon is released back into the atmosphere.
How much carbon could that 30,000 Ha store per year if it’s carefully managed grassland producing food and all the associated benefits that go with it? The associated stock will produce methane, but that will be reabsorbed in around 10 years.

Yes, I fail to understand how planting trees will save us from climate change. It is just delaying the inevitable. The only bonus I suppose is that a large area of trees would offset red meat production.

 

[jondear]

Bet we haven’t banned any Chinese coming over from those areas thou!

No just handed them a leaflet to call NHS if unwell!

 

[Derrick Hughes]

Direct Air Capture is the future

 

[Suffolk Serf]

Direct Air Capture is the future

Which is what plants do.

 

[farmerm]

I’ve just read the summary in the online edition of the Telegraph.
Says that red meat consumption should drop 20%.
The tree planting sounds rather a lot.
Not much mention (in the summary) of the real potential to sequester carbon in the soil if Farming is steered in the right direction.
It could have been worse, Packham or Monbiot could have been asked to write it.

I said it yesterday, I will say it today and I will probably say it again tomorrow... I am not against tree planting but we can plant trees on every acre of farmland in the UK and it only would only equate to 1.2years of global deforestation, even then it will be 100 years before our new woodland has truly offset those 1.2years of deforestation.

 

[farmerm]

Why is food production always bearing the brunt of all this climate stuff? Why are they not focusing on stuff that people don’t really need such as holidays on aeroplanes, and all consumer goods. Food is a necessity, surely better to cut back on all this plastic crap made in China?

In 1970 most houses in Britain would have had contained very few items not made in the UK. Today you have to look pretty hard to find an item in your house that did not arrive in a shipping container from 4000 miles away.

 

[Two Tone]

I’m not a scientist, but regard myself as a logical person.

Could somebody please explain to me how the hell planting trees in this country, especially deciduous trees that lose all their leaves in winter can possible sequester more CO2 (even after they have been established for 10-20 years!) than a growing crop of grass or cereals that sequester it at any temperature above 4 degrees C.

Especially those crops and grasslands that receive Nitrate fertiliser, whose photosynthesis is so dramatically enhanced to sequester far more CO2 out of the atmosphere than unfertilised crops?

It just doesn’t seem to make any sense to me.

 

[steveR]

I have just been sent the report by the CCC on future land use to achieve carbon net zero by 2050. It is embargoed until tomorrow morning and I have been sent it as I have been asked to comment on it by Sky news in the morning.

I'll have to pop across the road to see what Piers Corbyn has to say on this latest tranche of hyperbole!! Just to add a bit of balance to the argument...

I still remain less than convinced of the role of Man in CO2 production, causing a catastrophe. But hey, if I am wrong and they are right, or vice versa, there is SFA that I (or the UK!!) can do in anyway whatsoever to make any difference or change. I do wholly support the reduction in the use of hydrocarbons however, for the simple reason that they are a diminishing resource that should be taken care of...

However, I will farm where the money takes me... But please God, not Wall to Wall trees!!

http://www.weatheraction.com/docs/WANews14No11.pdf

 

[DRC]

Any links to the interview .

 

[farmerm]

I’m not a scientist, but regard myself as a logical person.

Could somebody please explain to me how the hell planting trees in this country, especially deciduous trees that lose all their leaves in winter can possible sequester more CO2 (even after they have been established for 10-20 years!) than a growing crop of grass or cereals that sequester it at any temperature above 4 degrees C.

Especially those crops and grasslands that receive Nitrate fertiliser, whose photosynthesis is so dramatically enhanced to sequester far more CO2 out of the atmosphere than unfertilised crops?

It just doesn’t seem to make any sense to me.

What do you think happens to the CO2 your grassland sequesters? The vast bulk of the CO2 sequester in your crop of fertilised grass is returned back to the atmosphere as CO2 or CH4 within a year as your stock consume it, as we consume the small proportion that gets sequestered in their meat and as microbes break down their dung and ours.. A tiny fraction many end up increasing the organic matter content of your soils but such stored carbon is very fragile and easily lost again. Even if you are increasing soil OM it is probably still less carbon than fossil fuels released in producing our fertiliser and carrying out our farming activities. Timber does at least take longer for its sequestered carbon to be release again, but ultimately all woodland reaches a point of carbon neutrality. Trees are not a sink for CO2 from fossil burning, all woodland creation can ever do is replace an equivalent area of woodland that was deforested 100 years ago.

The problem is neither trees, grass or cereals are really all that helpful in soaking up Carbon released from the burning of ancient carbon sinks. Ultimately unless the carbon held in biomass is locked up in a condition where it is not consumed and can not decompose it eventually returns as the atmosphere. Carbon locked up in crops, soil organic matter or timber is all transient and on the whole most is recycled and released back to the atmosphere within relatively short time frames.

The whole concept of carbon offsetting and storing carbon on UK farms is an utter and fairly pointless nonsense. It currently looks impossible to re-sequester all the carbon that has been released by global deforestation and soil OM depletion over the past 30 years! Until we can re-sequester the carbon that has been released by farming and deforestation then we are in no position to be considered as a carbon sink for carbon released from ancient, stable, carbon reservoirs.

There are very few real carbon sinks, Coal, Oil, Gas and Limestone take 10,000's of years to truly remove CO2 from the carbon cycle. Carbon fiber and graphene are perhaps more modern and practical carbon sinks. To truly offset the CO2 we release from fossil fuels we need to suck back the 36bn tonnes of CO2 released each year to the atmosphere and turn and churn out about 12bn tonnes of graphene.

I'll have to pop across the road to see what Piers Corbyn has to say on this latest tranche of hyperbole!! Just to add a bit of balance to the argument...

I still remain less than convinced of the role of Man in CO2 production, causing a catastrophe. But hey, if I am wrong and they are right, or vice versa, there is SFA that I (or the UK!!) can do in anyway whatsoever to make any difference or change. I do wholly support the reduction in the use of hydrocarbons however, for the simple reason that they are a diminishing resource that should be taken care of...

However, I will farm where the money takes me... But please God, not Wall to Wall trees!!

http://www.weatheraction.com/docs/WANews14No11.pdf

Regardless of my utter contempt for carbon offsetting and carbon trading, like you I will farm where the money take me! Ultimately getting paid for sequestering carbon, however futile and pointless it is, as a means to pay a farm subsidy it is politically an easier sell in 2020 than payments based on land ownership.

 

[puppet]

Google, Amazon, Micosoft, etc are aiming to be "carbon neutral" whatever that means. The only way is by offsetting. So I will happily sell them a sapling at £30 and £5/year to maintain it. That will help offset the obscene profits they have made selling us over-priced goods and services.

 

[betweenthelines]

Govt advice is to reduce meat and dairy consumption, yet a Govt Minister on R5 earlier today refused to say we should cut back on air travel? She said that future developments in technology would mean that air travel becomes more environmentally friendly. She was unable to provide a coherent answer when the interviewer asked "What about flying now?"

Obviously, the airlines are better at lobbying than farmers are.