Bryan, Brett, Nolan, Martin, Harwood, Thomas, Connor, Jeff, Navarro-Garcia, Javier, King, Darran, Summers, David, Newth, David, Cai, Y., Grigg, Nicky, Harman, Ian, Crossman, Neville, Grundy, Michael, Finnigan, John, Ferrier, Simon, Williams, Kristen, Wilson, Kerrie, Law, Elizabeth, Hatfield-Dodds, Steve, Bryan, Brett, Nolan, Martin, Harwood, Thomas, Connor, Jeff, Navarro-Garcia, Javier, King, Darran, Summers, David, Newth, David, Cai, Y., Grigg, Nicky, Harman, Ian, Crossman, Neville, Grundy, Michael, Finnigan, John, Ferrier, Simon, Williams, Kristen, Wilson, Kerrie, Law, Elizabeth, and Hatfield-Dodds, Steve
Global agroecosystems can contribute to both climate change mitigation and biodiversity conservation, and market mechanisms provide a highly prospective means of achieving these outcomes. However, the ability of markets to motivate the supply of carbon sequestration and biodiversity services from agricultural land is uncertain, especially given the future changes in environmental, economic, and social drivers. We quantified the potential supply of these services from the intensive agricultural land of Australia from 2013 to 2050 under four global outlooks in response to a carbon price and biodiversity payment scheme. Each global outlook specified emissions pathways, climate, food demand, energy price, and carbon price modeled using the Global Integrated Assessment Model (GIAM). Using a simplified version of the Land Use Trade-Offs (LUTO) model, economic returns to agriculture, carbon plantings, and environmental plantings were calculated each year. The supply of carbon sequestration and biodiversity services was then quantified given potential land use change under each global outlook, and the sensitivity of the results to key parameters was assessed. We found that carbon supply curves were similar across global outlooks. Sharp increases in carbon sequestration supply occurred at carbon prices exceeding 50tCO2-1 in 2015 and exceeding 65tCO2-1 in 2050. Based on GIAM-modeled carbon prices, little carbon sequestration was expected at 2015 under any global outlook. However, at 2050 expected carbon supply under each outlook differed markedly, ranging from 0 to 189MtCO2yr-1. Biodiversity services of 3.32 of the maximum may be achieved in 2050 for a 1B investment under median scenario settings. We conclude that a carbon market can motivate supply of substantial carbon sequestration but only modest amounts of biodiversity services from agricultural land. A complementary biodiversity payment can synergistically increase the supply of biodiversity services but will not provid