James Whitmore, La Conversation Canada; Michael Hopkin, La Conversation Canada et Emil Jeyaratnam, La Conversation Canada
The first round of contracts for Australia’s Emissions Reduction Fund have been awarded, at an average price of just under A$14 a tonne. How do the numbers stack up, and what projects are the big winners?
Mangroves, hectare for hectare, store more carbon than any other forests. But they are also among the most threatened. New projects in Indonesia show how mangroves might be restored.
Should we pick and choose our climate strategies based on how water-wise they are? As our new research published in Climatic Change shows, some activities aimed at tackling greenhouse emissions can also…
Australian farmers and rural land owners are being told that they will be given powerful and direct incentives to store carbon in the land under the federal government’s new climate policy. But is that…
Australia could lead the world in combating climate change. Wouldn’t you like to believe this was true? Actually though, Australia has a world-beating model to deal with climate change. But I’m not talking…
Australia’s two major parties have promised to reduce the country’s emissions by 5% by 2020, with two different approaches. Labor has used carbon farming as part of its approach; the Coalition is making…
In debates about climate change and the mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions, there is a widely-held belief that market mechanisms, like the Labor government’s carbon pricing scheme, will reduce emissions…
Australia’s southern coastal wetlands are more diverse than most people realise. In a recent paper, Paul Boon suggests they provide valuable ecological services that exceed those of inland wetland ecosystems…
The Australian Government has recently committed to a second round of the Kyoto Protocol to run from 2013-2020. In doing so, Australia is required to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by at least 5…
The Carbon Farming Initiative is about to provide incentives for dairy farmers to reduce emissions from their milking cows. Emissions will be reduced by changing the cows’ diet. The proposed new methodology…
Fire and biodiversity have a complex relationship in northern Australia. Tim Flannery and others blame the current northern biodiversity crisis, at least in part, on changed fire regimes. Improving fire…
Today, nearly 1.3 billion people – almost a fifth of the world’s population - live on “fragile” agricultural land. Just one-third of the rural poor in developing countries live on productive agricultural…
The Carbon Farming Initiative (CFI) and Biodiversity Fund, two new Australian government initiatives, could help private landholders generate income while benefiting both climate change abatement and biodiversity…
Biodiversity and farming go head to head in two R&D projects that I have a hand in. The struggles to both feed the swelling ranks of humanity and save our continent’s natural splendour are so often…