Carbon Sequestration in Agriculture: The Policy Context: Discussion

Abstract

The three articles presented in this session are well written, informative, and do a very nice job of framing the policy context for carbon sequestration in agriculture. By addressing the issues in Canada, the United States, and developing countries, the session has covered much of the spectrum in terms of current policy development around carbon sequestration. The article by Paul Thomassin deals with policy implementation in Canada, where the government has ratified the Kyoto accord and has begun developing concrete proposals for government-induced domestic emissions trading (DET) system. The paper by Young deals with implementation in the United States, which has not ratified the agreement but where there are some private and state level initiatives under development. Antle and Diagana deal with the carbon sequestration by developing countries, which face many challenges in developing governance frameworks and private institutions to sequester carbon. Taken as whole, these papers present the challenges and opportunities for the development of policies to sequester carbon in agriculture. The papers suggest that a DET system is not the silver bullet that will rapidly bring about carbon sequestration in agricultural soils. This conclusion strongly suggests that research is needed to look at DET systems with lower transactions costs, to look at alternatives, and importantly to look at a solution in the context of other market failures and the objectives of agricultural policy. This last point is important, since carbon sequestration is simply a means of meeting other goals, and the efficacy of DET systems in meeting these other goals must be th focus of analysis. Thomassin's article deals with the DET systems in Canada. Because he is starting from a proposed implementation framework, he is able to use a transaction cost framework to dis-