STORING carbon dioxide in the landscape has the potential to be as important to the rural economy in 2020 as the entire Australia wool industry, the federal government's climate change adviser, Ross Garnaut, believes.
Professor Garnaut addressed a public meeting in Armidale last night at the invitation of the independent MP Tony Windsor, a member of the government's climate change committee whose support will be crucial to the government's attempts to legislate a price on carbon.
About a fifth of Australia's greenhouse gas output is produced in rural areas, but this could be slashed if up to 14 per cent of the revenue raised by a price on carbon emissions was allocated to sequestering carbon dioxide in the landscape.
This would mean farmers would be paid for generating carbon credits by changing the way they managed soil, trees and livestock if they could show permanent and measurable change in emissions.
''It would equate to a new rural industry for Australia, as big as the wool industry was last year,'' Professor Garnaut said, citing CSIRO research that shows the potential for hundreds of millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide to be stored over time by changing tilling practices.
He visited a farm at Uralla, on the northern tablelands, with Mr Windsor yesterday to see how relatively simple changes in cropping and tilling cycles could help capture more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store it in the earth.
''There is a fair bit of excitement about biosequestration,'' he said. ''Not everyone agrees.
But that's the way things work in rural Australia: some farmers respond to an opportunity and their neighbours notice and it works, then they do it. It takes a while to disseminate through the community, especially in an atmosphere where not everyone's trying to have clarity of message.''
The methodologies for measuring carbon uptake are still being refined by the government, but areas that could end up generating credits include enriching soils with more carbon, forestry, and improvements in management of fire, landfill and methane from livestock.
Legislation for the federal government's carbon farming initiative was introduced on March 24.
The debate about a carbon price has divided rural communities. The NSW Farmers Federation opposes a carbon price because it is expected to drive up some costs, including the cost of food production.
But the National Farmers Federation said yesterday that, while it supported the state farming bodies, it was working with the political parties to minimise impacts on farmers.
Mr Windsor told ABC radio yesterday that there might never be a carbon tax because the government did not have the numbers to pass carbon price legislation without the support of the independent MPs. ''I have a vote, others do as well, so you can never guarantee something until it gets through a minority parliament.''
Professor Garnaut said: ''What he's saying is what he's always said to me - that he won't make up his mind until he's seen all the detail.''
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