Well a big enough cheque book is the answer to carbon footprint

Longlowdog

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Aberdeenshire
If you run a v8 doing 8 to the gallon you pay tax on fuel at a greater annual sum than someone with a 3cyl' runaround for the same amount of miles. That is punitive tax for being a polluter. By taxing pollution the government effectively negates personal responsibility for said pollution. You pay your penance at the pumps. Anything else is double jeopardy. It applies to aero fuel just the same.
I repeat, what are the governments doing with the money? if they are not actively negating pollution with pollution tax funds they are remiss. Simply making laws is not the same as negating the pollution that they have levied a tax on.
 

CornishTone

Member
BASIS
Location
Cornwall
If the payments can be traded or gamed, there will be any amount of playing with the figures, though. Any scheme would need thinking right through.

Unless payments are made through thoroughly auditable channels, there's a strong risk of takers of any payment finding themselves in thrall to the payer. If that's a multi-national corporation, or even a big national company, then there's a potential problem with outside control of land use.

Of course it would have to be regulated. That’s kinda the point. These companies are already spending the money to “offset” their carbon, but they’re spending it in South America but polluting here. Why not spend the money here where it can be traced and audited? It’s an alternative income stream. Apparently there’s no money in farming, so who wouldn’t be interested in earning a bit extra and carry on farming as well.

It comes down to a change of thought process I guess. There’s an opportunity to use a natural asset in a different way, but no ones forcing anyone, it’s just a pilot project.

It does raise the question though, if you are going to be paid to offset someone else’s carbon footprint, presumably you’d have to be carbon neutral yourself first and anything carbon positive over that would be what you get paid for?
 
If you run a v8 doing 8 to the gallon you pay tax on fuel at a greater annual sum than someone with a 3cyl' runaround for the same amount of miles. That is punitive tax for being a polluter. By taxing pollution the government effectively negates personal responsibility for said pollution. You pay your penance at the pumps. Anything else is double jeopardy. It applies to aero fuel just the same.
I repeat, what are the governments doing with the money? if they are not actively negating pollution with pollution tax funds they are remiss. Simply making laws is not the same as negating the pollution that they have levied a tax on.
Regarding your comment on aviation fuel, I was under the impression that there was currently no duty on it.
 
Regarding your comment on aviation fuel, I was under the impression that there was currently no duty on it.

That is my understanding also - Can you imagine what would happen to LHA as an international hub were there to be a unilateral duty charged on aviation fuel and a different rate at AMS or indeed any other major hub ?

Is not ALL aviation fuel traded in US Dollars ?

An aviation fuel tax would need to be at the same rate worldwide and that would require international co-operation - Fat Chance, can you see Trump agreeing to that ? ??
 

Longlowdog

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Aberdeenshire
A quick Google has indeed shown there is no duty, so bravo Sir Elton for making that trip carbon neutral.
I will not be guilt tripped when every day I harvest carbon at home and pay my penance at the pumps. No-one else should feel the same if they consume domestic fuel.
Anyone buying a gas guzzler new pays a whopping rate of road tax which is punitive and based on emissions, you can't be taxed and then criticised, you have paid your dues.
The same Google revealed that the E.U has the power to impose duty but chooses not to. That's business before environment on a continental scale. Picking on individuals whilst ignoring the bigger picture is blinkered thinking or simply picking on an easy target for the sake of it simply to make a noise and add to the inane clutter in our physical and social media.
 

tepapa

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
North Wales
I don't agree that it's fair for Elton to buy carbon credits so he can just carry on doing as he pleases regardless and just pay someone to make the pollution problem go away because then there is no incentive for anyone to change their ways and just think they can pay their way out of Global warming.
BUT if farmers can sell carbon credits at least they have a possible income in the future. Unfortunately I don't see any farmers getting rich off it but there will be plenty of traders in the city that will do very nicely out of it.
 

Bald Rick

Moderator
Livestock Farmer
Location
Anglesey
Private Jet to Nice & back = 8t of CO2 (approx.) emitted
Carbon "offset" cost £48 to cover that.

18cm tree whip is around 80p for a broadleaf so that little jolly plants 60 trees. Not worth a candle ..........






(see what I did there. Elton/Diana/"Goodbye England's rose)
 

primmiemoo

Member
Location
Devon
Of course it would have to be regulated. That’s kinda the point. These companies are already spending the money to “offset” their carbon, but they’re spending it in South America but polluting here. Why not spend the money here where it can be traced and audited? It’s an alternative income stream. Apparently there’s no money in farming, so who wouldn’t be interested in earning a bit extra and carry on farming as well.

It comes down to a change of thought process I guess. There’s an opportunity to use a natural asset in a different way, but no ones forcing anyone, it’s just a pilot project.

It does raise the question though, if you are going to be paid to offset someone else’s carbon footprint, presumably you’d have to be carbon neutral yourself first and anything carbon positive over that would be what you get paid for?

It will be interesting to see what the pilots conclude - presuming thoughts and outcomes are published.

It's high time that the "work" of carbon sequestration in farming is recognised and rewarded, but, to me at least, taking money from the offsetting pot for those rewards needs a great deal of thought. Wouldn't want a repeat of the early years of CSS, for instance, when land farmed to Stewardship standards was ineligible for the Scheme ... because it was already fulfilling the aims of the Scheme, either. That took some sorting out, iirc.
 

Exfarmer

Member
Location
Bury St Edmunds
Private Jet to Nice & back = 8t of CO2 (approx.) emitted
Carbon "offset" cost £48 to cover that.

18cm tree whip is around 80p for a broadleaf so that little jolly plants 60 trees. Not worth a candle ..........






(see what I did there. Elton/Diana/"Goodbye England's rose)

And when you plant broadleafs, you put i; about 400 to the acre, but only 4 remain time they are mature.
 

Longlowdog

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Aberdeenshire
There may only be 4 standards to the acre but there will/or should be two more layers of young and immature trees along with shrubs and a forest floor with a significant ecological value and considerable humus accumulated by the time the forest is managed to the stage where there are 4 or five standards remaining. In the mean time the thinnings if utilised correctly will be used in carbon locking products. Furthermore it is a cycle repeating ad infinitum with new standards being selected from the next generation of immature trees.
Once again we see negative and selective use of facts by single issue folk intent on damning the work done/being done and suggested by others. Why some of our own community are providing ammunition albeit of a rubbish standard to those who oppose us baffles me.
Further more, I don't know what grant allows 400/acre but most start at 1000/acre and they must be maintained until the developing woodland requires thinning to permit crown development by which time the area will look wooded and be functioning like an embryonic woodland.
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

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    Votes: 80 42.3%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 66 34.9%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 30 15.9%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 75-100%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 7 3.7%

Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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