PFI0045 Local Authorities and Net Zero
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PFI0045 Local Authorities and net zero - key issues the EAC should consider submitted by Professors Johnson, Roskilly and Abram with Jacki Bell (Durham Energy Institute), and Lisa Hodgson from Durham University in conjunction with Maggie Bosanquet, Richard Hurst and Stephen McDonald of Durham County Council, and Mark Roberts at Northumberland County Council 1.0 Introduction and who we are 1.1 Soil is the largest reservoir of carbon (after the oceans) in the UK. Poor land management and not putting carbon back into soils are two key reasons for significant soil degradation all over the world (Lal, 2003). This feeds a vicious cycle of climate change and further soil degradation. Understanding and exploiting the potential of returning carbon to soil to mitigate climate change is a critical but missing part of net zero plans. This is not just a local authority issue but a global issue that the UK can and should lead on. 1.2 This submission is based on the research findings of Professors Johnson, Roskilly and Abram around soils and energy in conjunction with the expertise of two of the UK’s largest counties, Durham and Northumberland, in implementing net zero policies. Soil is included in DCC and NCC local authority net zero plans but is considered very briefly (eg ‘Consider how soil conservation, soil regenerative farming, and agro-ecology can be promoted with farmers and landowners’). DCC and NCC, with VONNE (Voluntary Organisations’ Network North East), are developing plans to look at land use change that could form an excellent demonstration of how to include soil in net zero plans for UK. In light of this they have come to understand that local authorities are missing policy guidance around this issue and have even come across significant national and international policy disconnects. The Natural Capital Committee have recently produced a report stating that we must use of nature-based solutions for carbon sequestration since man-made technologies for doing this are expensive and unreliable (NCC, April 2020). However due to the nature of the report, practical details on how to ensure the carbon stored in soils is locked up to minimise the risk of it being released as carbon dioxide are few. For this reason, we believe that soil and local authority net zero plans should be a key focus for the Environmental Audit Committee. 2.0 What are the key issues that the Committee should consider under a particular inquiry topic? We propose one Inquiry around Soil and Net Zero for Local Authorities with 4 Key Issues which we highlight below (points 3-6). 3.1. Key Issue number 1 - Insufficient carbon is returned to land Returning carbon to the land is essential to maintain soil health and maximise carbon storage in land. In 2014, in the UK, we were only returning 70% of our organic waste streams to the soil (House of Lords, 2014). However now, although the figures are unknown, with the rise of both industry and local authorities adopting Anaerobic Digestion (AD) as a way of achieving net zero by generating renewable energy, we will be returning even less. This is because AD residues contain less carbon than composted wastes. The maths doesn’t add up and it is soil (and the ecosystem services it provides such as flood resilience and carbon storage) which is losing out. Local authorities first need guidance on who produces organic carbon. The main UK industries who return organic matter to land are Agriculture, Food and the Water PFI0045 Industry. In recent years all of these industries have aggressively adopted AD as a method of treating their organic wastes before potentially returning them to land. This adoption was driven partly by the Renewable Heat Incentive as AD produces the biomethane which is seen as a renewable energy source which helps industry achieve their own net zero targets. 3.1.1 How effective is Government policy in addressing Key Issue no.1? Because we are not returning enough Carbon to land this means we are doing the exact opposite of what we signed up to with the “4 per mille” agreement at the Paris Climate Change Agreement in 2015. This constitutes a clear international policy disconnect and means in fact that heat and soil vie for the same carbon rich wastes (Johnson et al, Nature 2018) in order to address climate change mitigation and adaptation. Although the Government’s Commercial Renewable Heat Incentive policy is in the process of being wound up (by 2021), the Domestic Renewable Heat Incentive is being extended to 2022. Both will be replaced in line with the low carbon heat roadmap due to be published later this year but we are concerned that soil (referred to as the ‘Cinderella of all resources’ by the former Chair of EAC, Mary Creagh MP) will still be overlooked. We propose that Carbon should be mapped across industries to better understand where carbon is available and in what form. This baseline survey could potentially align and complement Defra’s plans to baseline soil health around the UK. A valuable output from this assessment would be an understanding of when and where carbon is produced; when and where it is appropriate to use organic wastes for Anaerobic Digestion to produce methane; and when and where it is appropriate to return the organic waste in a stabilised form to land to maintain and enhance soil health. 4.0 Key issue number 2 - Optimising how carbon is returned to land Local authorities are concerned about the potential reversibility of carbon sequestration in soil (eg Poulton et al 2018). By that we mean that it might be used as a food source by soil microbes and turned back into carbon dioxide. However, promising research on how carbon is stabilised in soils suggests that it can be stored for hundreds of years by minerals like iron oxides (Tipping and Rowe 2019). An inquiry is desperately needed to produce guidance on how best to stabilise carbon in soils and best protect LA assets. We need to understand and collate information on innovative methods to return organic wastes to land to achieve net zero. From 2025, local authorities will all have to implement food waste collections. We need to understand how best to process this food waste to optimise soil health. 4.1.1 How effective is Government policy in addressing key issue no.2? At the moment there is no guidance on how to return organic matter in a stabilised form onto land. However there is clear academic research showing that organic matter binds strongly to mineral surfaces (eg Tipping et al, 2019). Return of biosolids from the Water Industry (often anaerobically digested) to land has become a controversial topic in its own right after the recent Greenpeace FOI of the AECOM report to the Environment Agency. It is controversial because of the presence of persistent organic pollutants (like antimicrobial resistance genes) in the biosolids. With the correct guidance from Government, engineers and scientists working with social scientists have the skills to consider all the issues - biological, chemical, physical and social - in order to safely return stabilised carbon to the land and close the loop soil. 5.0 Key issue number 3 - Hydrogen production from bio-waste PFI0045 Economically, Anaerobic Digestion (AD) is an important method of producing bio- methane for renewable energy and industries have invested significant money into these schemes. However, there is the potential alternative to produce bio-hydrogen which could retain more Carbon in the waste residues, which could then be returned to the land. Hydrogen will play an important role in decarbonising our economy. More research needs to be carried out in this area to provide much needed underpinning evidence on the pros and cons of the Hydrogen economy including overlapping pros and cons for soil health. 5.1.1 How effective is Government policy in addressing key issue no.3? Renewable energy and sustainable heat specifically are the highest priorities for Durham and Northumberland County Councils working with Universities and with Government (BEIS). The Renewable Heat Incentive as discussed in Section 3.1.1 has incentivised the use of carbon rich wastes to produce biomethane via AD. However, guidance on how this can be done whilst maintaining healthy soils is completely missing. In addition, the uptake of renewable heat is incredibly slow due to the price differential between a unit of renewable heat and a unit of natural gas heat. to support wider carbon sequestration and low carbon heat replacement programs and research. This, too, deserves further investigation at inquiry. 6.0 Key issue number 4 - Coordinating community action to achieve net zero Communities can and should play a big role in returning carbon to soil to improve both carbon storage and local flood resilience. Opportunities for community input and engagement around climate change, net zero and soil health need to be explored. There is a need and an opportunity to prioritise coordinated schemes between local authorities, food and water industries and communities for community composting - where high quality organic matter could be produced and returned in a stable form to soils to maintain soil health (and improve carbon storage as well as potentially improve flood resilience). By 2025, all UK local authorities will be required to collect food waste separately from municipal waste and there is an opportunity to support local communities to undertake community composting which is particularly valuable in urban settings. Otherwise we are looking at significant transport miles and processing cycles for local authority run schemes. 6.1.1 How effective is Government policy in addressing key issue no.4? Many communities have Citizen’s Assemblies to address climate change but these are disparate and uneven.