Understanding Carbon
Understanding carbon management is essential for enhancing soil health, boosting farm productivity, and meeting future reporting requirements within your supply chain. Effective carbon management strengthens farm resilience and supports environmental sustainability. The following information explores the global and national context, and what it means for Kangaroo Island. Topics explored include:
The global and national background
In 2015, Australia along with 195 other Parties adopted the Paris Agreement, a legally binding international treaty on climate change. This was a major step in international efforts to address climate change.
In 2022, Australia introduced the Climate Change Bill which legislates the nation's commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Australia’s commitment is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 43% below 2005 levels by 2030, and net zero by 2050.
All sectors, including agriculture, need to reduce emissions in order to achieve global and national agreements and emissions targets.
Agricultural industry bodies have developed or are developing sustainability plans to reduce emissions including:
Governments and large corporations, including banks and insurers, have also made carbon reduction commitments for 2030 to show they are moving in the right direction.
Carbon accounting, and actively managing carbon, is likely to be a part of doing business in the future.
Greenhouse gases in agriculture
Greenhouse gases, are gases in the Earth’s atmosphere that let sunlight past, but also trap heat from leaving the atmosphere. They help to keep the surface of the earth at a habitable temperature. Greenhouse gases occur naturally, and can also be induced by human activity such as burning of fossil fuels, deforestation and agriculture. The more greenhouse gases there are, the more heat is trapped, causing global warming.
Agricultural production including livestock and crops contribute around 17% of Australia’s total greenhouse gas emissions.
The main greenhouse gases influenced by agricultural practices include:
- Methane CH4 (enteric methane (belching) from livestock (ruminants))
- Nitrous oxide N2O (from soil microbial activity, fertiliser application and livestock manure and urine); and
- Carbon dioxide CO2 (burning of fossil fuels, plant decay, microbial activity in soils)
In a livestock production system methane accounts for the majority of the emissions on farm, followed by carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide.
Global Warming Potential (GWP)
Each greenhouse gas has a different Global Warming Potential. Carbon dioxide is used as the benchmark to compare how different greenhouse gases trap heat in the atmosphere.
The heat-trapping ability of a gas measured against carbon dioxide is the Global Warming Potential. These GWP’s are standardised and are outlined in the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Act 2007.
Averaged over 100 years, Methane has a GWP of 28, or is 28 times more potent than carbon dioxide. Therefore, emitting one tonne of methane is equivalent to emitting 28 tonnes of carbon dioxide. For nitrous oxide the GWP is 265.
The carbon cycle
Carbon cycles through our environment, and can be found as a gas, solid or liquid. The total amount of carbon on earth is fixed, we cannot create more and we are unable to remove it from the earth’s system. We can however influence where the carbon is stored.
In an agricultural system, carbon cycles through the atmosphere, through plants and animals and through the soil. Agricultural practices can impact how much carbon is stored on farm. By increasing carbon stored in our soil for example, not only is carbon dioxide removed from the atmosphere, but soil health improves which leads to productivity gains.
Unfortunately, grazing livestock farming systems convert some carbon into methane as part of their digestive cycle, with methane released through belching as a by-product. For the period of time the carbon is in its methane form, it warms the atmosphere at a faster rate, with the global warming potential of methane at 28 times that of carbon dioxide. As a result, even though the carbon in livestock systems are cycling, it still increases global warming.
Useful tools and information
Climate data for Kangaroo Island is available through the South Australian climate projections viewer.
My Climate View enables you to explore climate information relevant to your location and commodity.
ABARES latest modelling, examining the effects of recent and possible future changes in climate on the profitability of Australian farms.
CliMate App for past and forecast seasonal information.