Biomass could supply 8–11% of the UK’s total primary energy demand by 2020, with the greatest growth in UK domestic supply expected to come from agricultural residues and energy crops.

A significant area of land the United Kingdom could be used for growing such energy crops, without impinging on food production. However, despite policy support for the sector, uptake of these crops has so far been limited.

This policy note summarises the findings of agent-based modelling research investigating the potential of various policy mechanisms to achieve cost effective carbon abatement in the UK energy crop market.

This stakeholder workshop was held in November 2013 to address topics around carbon sequestration in agricultural soils and the potential for soil carbon to be included in whole-farm carbon accounting.

The workshop aimed to identify what is known in this field. It drew on research  from Scotland and referenced work undertaken elsewhere.

The workshop was attended by representatives from the Scottish Government, Higher Education Institutions and Industry from the UK and Ireland, presenting insights into the current state and potential of soil carbon accounting in the context of climate policy.

ClimateXChange researchers presented the cost and potential of carbon abatement from the UK perennial energy crop market at a workshop supported by WholeSEM (Whole System Energy Modelling), a new RCUK funded collaboration between UCL, Surrey, Imperial and Cambridge.

The initiative aims to understand:
– How energy demand co-evolves with changes in practice, supply, and policy
– How the endogenous, uncertain, and path dependent process of technological change will impact future energy systems
– How the energy supply-demand system can be optimised over multiple energy vectors and infrastructures
– What are the major future physical and economic interactions and stresses between the energy system and the broader environment.

Useful links

Changes in temperature and rainfall can affect the spread and proliferation of infection-causing (pathogenic) bacteria. Bacteria thrive in warm, wet conditions, for example, whilst increased ‘run-off’ caused by heavy rain can assist bacteria to spread from one area to another.

Some of the most dangerous human diseases are caused by zoonotic pathogens, which are transmitted between animals and humans. Many of these pathogens are capable of interacting with alternative hosts and environments, such as plants and soil.  This means that plants can play an important part in the transmission of pathogens, either to other animals through grazing or feed, or to humans through edible crops.

As the climate changes, it is increasingly important to understand how these bacteria are transmitted from one environment to another so that infection may be avoided.

This paper reports on experimental research carried out by the James Hutton institute and explores how climate change may affect the transmission and adaptation of zoonotic pathogens to various environments.

This workshop highlighted the key food security issues likely to influence policy development, and explored how these relate to emissions reduction objectives. The question of how we achieve the right balance between food security and climate change mitigation is a key policy challenge for Scotland, and indeed for societies across the world.

The workshop concluded that:

  • Solutions for balancing the global needs for both food security and climate change mitigation lie in better land use planning, reducing waste and changing diets.
  • Better insight is needed into how best to effect social and behavioural change related to food production and consumption.
  • Nutrition security remains key to public health and should be a condition for any policies impacting on food supply and consumption, including climate change mitigation actions.
  • Relating food security and climate change mitigation is a high level policy activity. Different government policy areas should work more closely together to achieve wide reaching, integrated solutions.

Four leading experts introduced the key issues.  Prof Tim Benton, University of Leeds described the drivers of future food supply and demand, and the trade-offs involved in trying to meet our different objectives for the food system. Prof Pete Smith, Science Director of ClimateXChange, University of Aberdeen highlighted some ways of co-delivering food security and climate change mitigation and noted that demand side options are under-developed. Prof Richard Tiffin, University of Reading outlined key food price trends and discussed the impact of these on the UK, particularly on poorer households. Prof Paul Haggarty, Rowett Institute of Nutrition and Health stressed that a healthy diet can hit both health and climate objectives.

Several themes emerged from participants’ discussions, notably around:

  • behaviour change;
  • the potentially differential health impacts of food insecurity;
  • waste avoidance; and
  • agreement on the need to bring diverse policy areas together and to work better across traditional policy boundaries on this complex issue.

This report discusses options for a future forest carbon market in the UK. Forests provide ‘climate services’ by  removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and storing  it as  carbon. This research looks at whether the owners of UK forests could benefit more from maintaining and increasing the stock of carbon locked up in their forests. This could for example be done through some form of tradable carbon credit.

The research looked at:

  • national and international mechanisms to administer the flow of carbon credits generated by forestry;
  • the potential of UK forests to generate Kyoto-compliant carbon offsets;
  • detailed options for developing and operating future forest carbon markets in the UK;
  • barriers to the above options and how they could potentially be overcome;
  • the likely scale of impacts on the forest sector in the UK.

The findings are from a desk-based literature review and a set of five semi-structured interviews with key experts including carbon brokers/traders, government officials and UN staff during March and April 2013. The project was commissioned by ClimateXChange for the Forestry Commission.

The Scottish Government’s Rural Development Programme (SRDP) is the main fund supporting rural development in Scotland. It supports economic, environmental and social measures to encourage sustainable development within rural Scotland.
The programme provides funding for projects covering farming, forestry, rural enterprise and business development, diversification and rural tourism.

ClimateXChange was asked to review the impact of the programme’s Agri-Environment options, i.e. the suggested incentives to farmers and land managers to ensure they manage their land in an environmentally sensitive way.

This report:

  • assesses the existing SRDP options in relation to their impact on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions or carbon sequestration;
  • evaluates potential additional benefits from the SRDP options with regards to their GHG impacts; and
  • provides an easy to use matrix of the potential SRDP options.

The research found that most SRDP measures provide benefits across a range of indicators of GHG savings and reduced nutrient losses. However, there is significant geographical variation in how applicable different measures are. This can limit their potential for greenhouse gas mitigation at the national scale.

Wind speeds play an important role in the spread of crop-threatening plant diseases. However, climate predictions indicate that the spread of such diseases in Scotland may be hindered in the future by reductions in spring and summer wind speeds.

Understanding how reductions in wind speed may affect the dispersal of plant diseases provides an opportunity to reduce the amount of chemicals used to protect crops from disease. This would reduce the environmental impact of crop production and improve resource efficiency.

This paper reports on the initial findings of research carried out by the James Hutton Institute, which modelled the impact of changes in wind speed on the spread of potato late blight.

Based on this research, the report highlights potential opportunities to reduce the use of chemicals through:

  •  a transition from fixed, calendar spray regimes towards accurate disease forecasting, allowing the correct agro-chemical products to be applied during critical periods of inoculum pressure;
  • the establishment of disease-suppressive agricultural landscapes to capitalise on expected reductions in inoculum pressure.

This ongoing research project will deliver novel agricultural management strategies and inform the Scottish Government’s climate change adaptation, food security and water policies.

Land drainage is essential to maintaining the productivity of Scottish agriculture. It also has significant potential to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions.

Wet soils can produce large quantities of Nitrous Oxide, a powerful greenhouse gas. Much of these emissions may be avoided through adequate agricultural drainage.

The Scottish Government has historically provided funding for the drainage of wet agricultural land. However, there is evidence that the condition of Scotland’s drainage infrastructure has deteriorated in the past 50 years, with little investment currently taking place.

As such, improving agricultural drainage infrastructure could represent a cost effective greenhouse gas mitigation measure.

Through a review of existing data, this report identifies:

• the current state of Scotland’s agricultural drainage infrastructure;
• the potential magnitude of greenhouse gas abatement from installing or improving drainage; and
• the impacts that such activity may have on other climate change mitigation policies.

ClimateXChange has been involved in peatland research from the outset, particularly focused on the carbon benefits from peatland restoration and how it might contribute to greenhouse gas emissions reduction in Scotland.

The Durban Summit in December 2011 paved the way for wetland management, including peatland, to be included in national greenhouse gas emissions accounting.

ClimateXChange continues to explore the implications of the international guidance for greenhouse gas emissions accounting with specific reference to wetlands in Scotland. Download our reports using the links to the right. They are:

  • Potential Abatement from Peatland Restoration exploring the range of possible CO2 emissions from Scottish peatland restoration, carbon savings from all peatland restoration carried out since 1990 and the potential for carbon savings up to 2027 and a realistic restoration abatement figure. Methane and nitrous oxide fluxes were not fully considered in this early work (February 2012, revised March 2013).
  • Carbon Calculator – since 2011, applications for the development of wind farms of 50 MW or greater on peatland sites have been expected to use the Scottish Government’s Peatland Carbon Calculator (the C calculator) as part of their environmental impact assessment.This report reviews the current use of the C calculator in Scotland, and considers the potential for enhancing and extending its use.
  • An assessment of the proposed IPCC “2013 Supplement to the 2006 guidelines: Wetlands” for use in GHG accounting of Scottish peatland restoration – a report examining the implications of the emission factors identified in the draft 2013 Supplement to the 2006 IPCC Guidelines – (February 2014).
  • A more detailed technical review of the implications of the 2013 supplement 2013 Supplement to the 2006 IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories: Wetlands and a summary of the report (February 2015).