(this also from Corey Watts) – The Australian Farm Institute has provided a farm GHG estimation tool which can be used to estimate a farm’s annual GHG emissions, both at the individual enterprise activity level and for the farm as a whole, and to examine the financial impacts that different greenhouse mitigation options may have on farm business profitability. See: http://afilive.freshweb.com.au/publicpages/AFIPublic.aspx?ReturnUrl=%2fdefault.aspx
Apart from farm members, those interested in LCA tools might want to compare this with some other offerings, including the UK’s CALM, developed by the Country Land and Business Association. See http://www.calm.cla.org.uk/
8. Australian carbon sequestration report
Australia’s CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation) has published a report entitled: An analysis of greenhouse gas mitigation and carbon biosequestration opportunities from rural land use.
This has been taken this summary straight from Corey Watt’s newsletter as follows:
This 172-page report estimates the amount of greenhouse gases that can be stored or mitigated by changes in rural land use in Queensland and more broadly, Australia.
Key finding 1: With committed research and policy efforts, a large amount of carbon could be stored or greenhouse gases abated in Australia’s rural lands and this could significantly offset our emissions over the next 40 years.
Key finding 2: This analysis confirms the potential identified in the Garnaut Review and quantifies the amount of greenhouse gas mitigation and carbon storage that could realistically be achieved with a concerted research and policy effort.
Key finding 3: Australia’s agricultural land systems and land clearing account for a relatively high percentage (28 per cent) of our greenhouse gas emissions of 597 Mt CO2-e/yr (million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents per year) (2007).
Key finding 4: Queensland can offset up to 77 per cent of its greenhouse gas emissions and similar trends apply nationally.
You can download the summary and full report here: http://www.csiro.au/resources/carbon-and-rural-land-use-report.htmlwww.csiro.au/resources/carbon-and-rural-land-use-report.html