Land Use

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We start our coverage of the United Nations climate talks in Bonn with a look at some of the targets that rich nations are bringing to the table. We also flag up the dangers of the scientifically unfounded rush to include Biochar and large-scale no-till agriculture in the draft negotiating texts in an interview with Almuth Ernsting from Biofuel Watch.

The bad news is that we have fewer actual answers than we need to make a watertight case for biochar, especially in a climate context … we need to advocate for policies that allow for the emergence of a biochar industry … before we have answers to the many research questions. – Steve Brick – Executive Director, International Biochar Intiative.

There are still fundamental uncertainties associated with biochar as a mitigation option … Our mitigation scenarios are strictly illustrative in nature … [and] assume waste-derived biochar provides only a very small fraction of the land-use related CO2 drawdown, with reforestation and curtailed deforestation providing a magnitude more. – Pushker Kharecha & James Hansen.

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We are delighted to present a recording of a lecture by joint Nobel Peace Prize Winner and Chair of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Dr Rajendra Pachauri.

Dr Pachauri has made news recently by advocating eating less meat as a personal contribution to combating the problem of global warming and climate change. This advice has its basis in a recent report by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation entitled “Livestock’s Long Shadow” which showed that beef and dairy farming was responsible for a massive 18% of global greenhouse gas emissions – more than the entire global transport sector. The lecture is entitled “Global Warning – The impact of meat production and consumption on climate change.”