by SUSAN MANN
Ontario’s agricultural industry only produces a tiny amount of Canada’s total greenhouse gas emissions but the sector isn’t doing anything to reduce its output, says Ontario Environmental Commissioner Gord Miller.
Miller made the comments during an interview after today’s release of his annual review of the provincial government’s 2007 climate change action. His report is called A Question of Commitment, Review of the Ontario Government’s Climate Change Action Plan Results. Ontario’s 2007 plan established province-wide targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions as well as programs for reducing emissions in six sectors – electricity, transportation, industry, building, agriculture and waste.
“The agriculture sector has not contributed anything to meeting” Ontario’s targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, he says, questioning if the industry was planning to continue not contributing.
Don McCabe, Ontario Federation of Agriculture vice-president, disagrees the industry isn’t doing its part. Agriculture has increased production every year as part of the long-term trend, which means farmers are producing “more units of output per year with less greenhouse gas emissions. We are becoming more efficient.”
The sector is also doing its part through efforts such as the OFA-led biomass project looking to supply coal-fired Nanticoke and Lambton electricity generating stations with energy crops and studying feedstocks and crop residues in general for use in future biochemicals.
As for the province overall, Miller says in a press release accompanying his report’s release that the Ontario government is backing away from its plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Delays now will cripple efforts to fight climate change. “With each passing year, it becomes clear that without new policies and a drastic change in the current upward trajectory of greenhouse gas emissions our planet is headed for a frightening future,” he states.
The government is only halfway to meeting its 2020 target. That’s only eight years away and Ontario has no additional measures to close the gap. Miller acknowledges the government’s phasing out of coal-fired generation has helped it reach 90 per cent of its 2014 target. But the associated increase in Ontario’s natural gas generating capacity is going to make it difficult for the government to meet its 2020 and 2050 emissions reductions targets.
Miller says the federal government reports the Ontario’s agricultural industry has been emitting 10 megatonnes of greenhouse gas annually for the past several years. Ontario as a whole emits around 170 megatonnes.
The provincial greenhouse gas emissions targets are 165 megatonnes by 2014 and 150 megatonnes by 2020.
“Agriculture hasn’t contributed to a reduction since 2007,” Miller notes, adding there has been a shift in where greenhouse gases from the sector are coming from with a bit less methane from livestock but quite a bit more nitrous oxide from crop production. The two big sources of agricultural emissions are cattle belches and nitrous oxide from ammonium nitrate fertilizer for cash crops, he says.
Miller acknowledges there have been discussions within the industry about sequestering carbon in the soils and there have been initiatives on biofuel production to displace the burning of fossil fuels for energy production. But farmers could be contributing to Ontario’s efforts to meet its greenhouse gas emissions targets if they were more mindful in their use of nitrogen fertilizer. Doing that would enable the sector to “reduce that nitrous oxide number down,” he says.
For livestock, Miller says their numbers are down and “so the emissions from livestock are currently down.”
Miller says its now time for farmers to do more than just no-till to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. They should have more sophisticated fertilizer management applications and be involved in more sophisticated programs to increase the organic matter content of their soils. With programs where farmers’ efforts can be independently verified, there could be financial incentives.
McCabe says farmers are reducing their greenhouse gas emissions within their own operations “because that is a cost saving directly to our businesses but it’s not being captured because there’s no data management to do it.” BF
Comments
Who cares anyways ,just look at the drive through line ups at Timmie's for coffee
Years and untold amounts of money were spent on reducing greenhouse gas predicated on unsound science and outright lies. http://junkscience.com/2012/12/03/with-carbon-dioxide-emissions-at-recor... The missing data of global warming trends were finally confirmed after Canada and others without the support of the US climbed on board to promise massive reductions.
Our greatest danger from greenhouse gas emanates from politicians and their supporters still confirming the need without proper scientific support data. The hangers on of the flat earth society took a long time to disappear too!
By weight the largest contributor to methane gas is termites but the OFA supporters and politicians of all things green are a close second.
OFA and the politicians need to explain
1. How the substitution of biomass organic matter (carbon) for coal burning reduces CO2 emissions?
2. How the substitution of biomass organic matter for coal burning somehow increases soil organic matter which increases water holding capacity of soils and reduces soil erosion? I suspect the opposite is true.
3. How intermittent wind turbine power with their mandatory gas plant backup power can have any significant factor in reducing CO2?
I would agree with the previous poster on all three points .
On number 2 it is obvious to any farmer that the removal of crop residue decreases the ability to build organic matter especially when it is not returned to the field as manure . . You need the stover to be left on the field so it can break down into organic matter . Also the removal process and trucking would emit more harmfull emisions into the atmosphere .
As for nitrates and the seemingly benefits of no-till , this months edition of Better Farming has on the front cover a story that points to no-till as being the culprit in putting phosphorus in our lakes . Nitrates could follow the same path I would think .
Well said ... If "we" can base our thoughts and conversations on fact, why is it so hard for politicians who think we are too stupid to see through their junk science to find rational science based fact?
Government represented by a tribunal recently threatened charges of abuse of process. The online legal dictionary law.com defines abuse of process as “the use of legal process by illegal, malicious, or perverted means.” Would this apply to government adopted policy perpetrated on rural Ont. not based in scientific fact?
As was asked in another posting recently, if OFA is so easily swayed to political agendas with little to no scientific fact "Who really represents the concerns of agriculture and rural Ont.?"
In the absence of scientific fact of global warming beyond reasonable or alarming bounds, when is this a breach of fiduciary duty that should be delt with as the scorned mayors were?
Carbon is the main element in coal so burning carbon which is organic matter is the same net effect as burning coal is it not ?
I suspect the "Flat-earth" people didn't disappear, they just bought quota - after all, it's only a small step to go from denying scientific truth to denying economic truth.
Stephen Thompson, Clinton ON
Maybe miller and OFA should look a the amounts of belch that humans do, toronto greenbelt people do when they walk the green belt trails belch and fart
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