IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/eerhrr/94809.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The challenges of finding efficient policy measures to reduce Australia’s agricultural Greenhouse gas emissions

Author

Listed:
  • King, Helen

Abstract

A comprehensive emissions trading scheme (ETS) is Australia’s principal climate change policy instrument. There are undoubtedly benefits of full ETS coverage. However, if emissions that cannot be affordably, reasonably and accurately measured are included, these must be balanced against potential costs. This report explores why agriculture is different from other sectors. Agriculture’s diffuse and diverse emissions are inherently difficult to measure. They also fluctuate in response to environmental factors such as climate and biophysical characteristics. It is problematic to include the agriculture sector in the ETS, at reasonable cost and with incentives for behaviour change at the emission source. This is because of the climate and biophysical characteristics combined with the scale of over 130,000 farm enterprises. Worse, the emphasis on including agricultural emissions in the ETS is a disincentive for early abatement action. Alternative abatement policies are considered in this report which concludes that a ‘carrot and stick’ approach, using a range of policy instruments, is the best way to deliver cost effective abatement for agriculture.

Suggested Citation

  • King, Helen, 2008. "The challenges of finding efficient policy measures to reduce Australia’s agricultural Greenhouse gas emissions," Research Reports 94809, Australian National University, Environmental Economics Research Hub.
  • Handle: RePEc:ags:eerhrr:94809
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.94809
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/94809/files/EERH_RR9.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.94809?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. McCann, Laura & Colby, Bonnie & Easter, K. William & Kasterine, Alexander & Kuperan, K.V., 2005. "Transaction cost measurement for evaluating environmental policies," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(4), pages 527-542, March.
    2. Garnaut,Ross, 2008. "The Garnaut Climate Change Review," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521744447.
    3. Pezzey, John C.V. & Jotzo, Frank & Quiggin, John C., 2008. "Fiddling while carbon burns: why climate policy needs pervasive emission pricing as well as technology promotion," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 52(1), pages 1-14.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Helen King, 2008. "The challenges of finding efficient policy measures to reduce Australia'’s agricultural greenhouse gas emissions," Environmental Economics Research Hub Research Reports 0809, Environmental Economics Research Hub, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University.
    2. Pezzey, John C.V. & Mazouz, Salim & Jotzo, Frank, 2010. "The logic of collective action and Australia’s climate policy," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 54(2), pages 1-18.
    3. Kym Anderson & Signe Nelgen & Ernesto Valenzuela & Glyn Wittwer, 2009. "Economic contributions and characteristics of grapes and wine in AustraliaÂ’s wine regions," Centre for International Economic Studies Working Papers 2009-01, University of Adelaide, Centre for International Economic Studies.
    4. John Foster & Liam Wagner & Phil Wild & Junhua Zhao & Lucas Skoofa & Craig Froome, 2011. "Market and Economic Modelling of the Intelligent Grid: End of Year Report 2009," Energy Economics and Management Group Working Papers 09, School of Economics, University of Queensland, Australia.
    5. Cai, Yiyong & Newth, David & Finnigan, John & Gunasekera, Don, 2015. "A hybrid energy-economy model for global integrated assessment of climate change, carbon mitigation and energy transformation," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 148(C), pages 381-395.
    6. Kaidonis, Mary & Moerman, Lee & Rudkin, Kathy, 2009. "Paradigm, paradox, paralysis: An epistemic process," Accounting forum, Elsevier, vol. 33(4), pages 285-289.
    7. Nigel Martin & John Rice, 2010. "Analysing emission intensive firms as regulatory stakeholders: a role for adaptable business strategy," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(1), pages 64-75, January.
    8. Sheng, Yu & Xu, Xinpeng, 2019. "The productivity impact of climate change: Evidence from Australia's Millennium drought," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 182-191.
    9. Hongbo Duan & Gupeng Zhang & Shouyang Wang & Ying Fan, 2018. "Balancing China’s climate damage risk against emission control costs," Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, Springer, vol. 23(3), pages 387-403, March.
    10. Foster, John & Bell, William Paul & Wild, Phillip & Sharma, Deepak & Sandu, Suwin & Froome, Craig & Wagner, Liam & Misra, Suchi & Bagia, Ravindra, 2013. "Analysis of institutional adaptability to redress electricity infrastructure vulnerability due to climate change," MPRA Paper 47787, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Monika Winn & Manfred Kirchgeorg & Andrew Griffiths & Martina K. Linnenluecke & Elmar Günther, 2011. "Impacts from climate change on organizations: a conceptual foundation," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(3), pages 157-173, March.
    12. Giorel Curran, 2011. "Modernising Climate Policy in Australia: Climate Narratives and the Undoing of a Prime Minister," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 29(6), pages 1004-1017, December.
    13. Anne GASSIAT & Sylvain ROUSSET & Frèdèric ZAHM, 2011. "Improving water quality with a territorial agro-environmental policy? Insights from the new generation AES in South-West France," ERSA conference papers ersa10p1569, European Regional Science Association.
    14. Thamo, Tas & Addai, Donkor & Kragt, Marit E. & Kingwell, Ross S. & Pannell, David J. & Robertson, Michael J., 2019. "Climate change reduces the mitigation obtainable from sequestration in an Australian farming system," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 63(4), October.
    15. Raymond Markey & Joseph McIvor & Martin O’Brien & Chris F Wright, 2021. "Triggering business responses to climate policy in Australia," Australian Journal of Management, Australian School of Business, vol. 46(2), pages 248-271, May.
    16. Mushtaq, Shahbaz & Cockfield, Geoff & White, Neil & Jakeman, Guy, 2014. "Modelling interactions between farm-level structural adjustment and a regional economy: A case of the Australian rice industry," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 123(C), pages 34-42.
    17. Nelson, Tim & Pascoe, Owen & Calais, Prabpreet & Mitchell, Lily & McNeill, Judith, 2019. "Efficient integration of climate and energy policy in Australia’s National Electricity Market," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 178-193.
    18. Dr Barry Naughten, 2013. "Emissions Pricing, 'Complementary Policies' and 'Direct Action' in the Australian Electricity Supply Sector: 'Lock-in' and Investment," CCEP Working Papers 1304, Centre for Climate & Energy Policy, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University.
    19. Elijido-Ten, Evangeline, 2011. "Media coverage and voluntary environmental disclosures: A developing country exploratory experiment," Accounting forum, Elsevier, vol. 35(3), pages 139-157.
    20. Frank Jotzo & Regina Betz, 2009. "Australia's emissions trading scheme: opportunities and obstacles for linking," Climate Policy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 9(4), pages 402-414, July.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ags:eerhrr:94809. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/asanuau.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.