Some highlights from this week’s News Scan:

The PICS News Scan is produced by ISIS at the Sauder School of Business and the Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions (PICS). To be added to the News Scan distribution list Subscribe Here or to provide content feedback and/or suggestions about interesting news items, please email: picsscan@uvic.ca.

Research Theme I: The low carbon emissions economy

The role of agriculture in responding to climate change

February 28, 2013.  The global food system, from fertilizer manufacturing to soil management and transportation, is responsible for up to 12 percent of all human-caused greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. For the first time, a study has investigated the full range of agricultural factors that contribute to GHG emissions, in hopes of finding answers as to how emissions can be reduced. Focusing on crop and dairy farms, a team of scientists has found that fossil fuel consumption, nitrogen fertilizers and pesticides were among the main sources of carbon dioxide emissions in agriculture. Some strategies outlined for landholders to effectively offset rising emissions are: to grow feed rather than to purchase it; to increase nitrogen fertilizer efficiency by streamlining production processes; and to incorporate a diversified crop rotation strategy. Most interestingly, investigations show that crop yields and GHG emissions fluctuate significantly between different farms – for organic and conventional –- pointing to the individual know-how of farm managers and their role in improving a farm’s greenhouse gas balance.

Overall, BC’s agriculture sector is a relatively small contributor to GHG emissions. According to the British Columbia Greenhouse Gas Inventory Report 2010, 3.3% of B.C.’s greenhouse gas emissions were attributed to agriculture, with main sources including emissions from livestock, manure management and deforestation. Despite its relatively small carbon footprint, the BC Agriculture Council and the Investment Agriculture Foundation created the Climate Action Initiative to improve collective industry knowledge on the implications of climate change and how to better address climate change issues. By focusing on educational opportunities, developing effective technical support and incentivizing BC’s farms to reduce emissions voluntarily, the province is encouraging the growth of a low carbon agricultural sector in BC.

Research Theme II: Sustainable communities

New model refines CO₂ emission estimates for transport

February 27, 2013.  Researchers at Boston University recently developed a new model that takes a different approach to measuring on-road vehicle emissions:  provision of regional scale estimates, something that was challenging in the past due to incorrect methodology. Existing models typically rely on household characteristics to estimate vehicle trips generated and then distribute those trips across the road network. This in turn determines the emissions based on population and road density. This assumes, for instance, a fixed relationship between emissions and road density, which is likely not the case due to variation in roadway types and rural-urban differences. This new model gets around this problem by using data on average daily traffic volumes in conjunction with information on the distance traveled by different vehicle types. Annual per-mile CO₂ emissions can then be estimated for each section of road, making the model highly localized and region specific.

The ability to estimate carbon emissions at a local level is important for planning. Urban form and characteristics of the built environment, such as population density, jobs-housing balance, and a diversity of land uses, have a significant impact on the intensity of emissions. With the implementation of Official Community Plans in British Columbia there is now a requirement for communities to have GHG emission reduction targets, and to accurately measure and track the results. Only with precise emission estimates will the true impacts of policy changes and decisions be known, and subsequently revised, so that targets can be met. Additionally, in order for municipalities to access Gas Tax Agreement money to help address infrastructure needs, they are now required to demonstrate that they are engaging in sustainability planning, which returns to the need to track progress locally.

Research Theme III: Resilient ecosystems

The ACT framework: addressing impacts through collaboration

February 27, 2013.  Recently in Conservation Biology, US researchers published the outcomes of a series of workshops designed to bring scientists and natural resource managers together to address climate change impacts. The article discusses a practical collaborative planning framework called Adaptation for Conservation Targets (ACT). ACT focuses on mobilizing adaptation to climate change by producing informed, measurable management goals. Through two-day workshops, participants went from being unsure about the local effects of climate change to developing and refining actions to address impacts on species or ecosystems. Actions were prioritized on the basis of relative feasibility, effectiveness, cost, and applicability under two different scenarios of climate change. The ACT process also facilitated multiple agencies and organizations working together to implement actions. One participant commented on the practical nature of the process, saying “climate change workshops… are mostly just depressing. This one was different because there was a focus on the huge variety of things that we can do.”

Mobilizing responses to climate change can be difficult, especially when the task is complex. This can be said of biodiverse regions like BC, where there are 91 different biogeoclimatic subzones and tens of thousands of species. Conservation demands will always overwhelm resources, which mean prioritization is critical. In BC, the Conservation Framework (CF) was developed to guide the allocation of scarce resources. Managers are expected to identify conservation challenges before using the framework and then rank possible management actions based on previously obtained scientific data and existing conservation statuses. The CF does not foster collaboration between scientists and managers, nor does it necessarily address local climate change impacts. Local data may not exist or be insufficient, leaving resource managers with the problematic task of interpreting how climate change will affect their management priorities. Standardizing a process like the ACT may help ensure that all management decisions fully address possible climate change impacts.

Research Theme IV: Social mobilization

New school curriculum could shift climate debate

March 4^th, 2013.  Despite the intensely polarized debate over climate change in the US, skepticism over the issue is about to be removed from the curriculum in many of America’s classrooms. The newly announced Next Generation Science Standards recommend teachers begin to introduce the evidence for anthropogenic climate change within elementary school-level science classes, and educate about the full effects of man-made climate change by grade eight. Twenty six states, the National Research Council, the National Science Teachers Association, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science jointly developed the standards. When implemented, these new teaching standards will have the ability to dramatically shift not only the conversation in America’s classrooms, but among the public at large. According to a spokesperson for the National Centre for Science Education, the standards are ‘revolutionary’. In the US, education standards are set at the state level and McGraw-Hill, the country’s largest textbook producer anticipates 80-90% of US states will choose to adopt the standards endorsed by the National Research council.

In British Columbia, the Green Schools initiative led by the Ministry of Education presents a series of strategies and programs that enhance environmental sustainability within BC’s school system and through curriculum, and by ensuring that school infrastructure meets the same ‘green’ standards that are being taught to students. The program includes sustainability course content in both English and French, and additionally provides teachers with grade-level specific climate change lesson plans, tailored to students from kindergarten through to grade 12. The initiative also dovetails with the Carbon Neutral Action Plan, which requires all British Columbia public sector organizations including schools to make their operations carbon neutral, and the Climate Action Revenue Incentive Charter, which reimburses carbon tax payments to BC School Boards that have signed onto the charter agreement.

Research Theme V: Carbon management in BC forests

Seeing the forest for the carbon

February 27, 2013.  The Sierra Club, an environmental group, released a report suggesting that the logging of old growth forests releases an enormous amount of carbon. They claim that in 2011, 5,700 hectares of old growth forest was logged on Vancouver Island and the lower mainland. This released 3 million tonnes of carbon, equivalent to all the official carbon savings claimed by the BC government between 2007 and 2010. The report rests on the idea that once an old growth forest is logged, its carbon has been emitted. This is an idea that industry groups dispute, suggesting that the resulting products of logging – houses and furniture for example – can in fact store the carbon present in the trees logged. The report comes at a politically charged time, while the BC government looks for new sources of fibre for an industry facing a shortage.

At its heart, the report represents a disagreement over methodology. The Sierra Club worries that carbon from old growth forests is immediately released back to the atmosphere, impeding efforts to slow climate change. Industry representatives believe that the carbon from logging is embedded in the final products, and point out that forests are re-planted after harvesting. These replanted forests absorb new carbon quickly, but store very little. An old growth forest absorbs very little new carbon, but represents a massive existing sink. The reality lies somewhere in between, and measuring it requires sophisticated lifecycle accounting that scientists are still developing. However, converting a massive carbon sink into an area with the potential to absorb new carbon introduces non-carbon issues: for example, old growth forests with a litany of non-carbon values are lost in the process.

Also in the news

Global warming could corrode shallow reefs sooner than forecast

South Africa to introduce carbon tax from 2015

Swift reaction as Shell suspends 2013 Arctic Alaska offshore drilling

US scientists report big jump in heat-trapping CO2

Climate change will test newly understood resilience in plants

Wall Street begins to grapple with climate change

Sequester this: US consumers paid a 2.7% climate disruption tax in 2012

Download pdf version: PICS Climate News Scan – 12 March 2013

Photo Credit: Richard Masoner

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