This submission argues that climate change cannot be solved by emissions cuts alone, especially while rapidly developing countries expand. It proposes a parallel strategy: remove carbon from the atmosphere by capturing it in soil, using water-harvesting growing systems (including wicking beds) that drive microbiology to bond carbon into stable soil. The paper focuses on China as the decisive factor in future emissions, and calls for international protocols and trading schemes to pay growers for soil carbon capture, supported by technology transfer and simple measurement systems.
Submission Details
Submission To: Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme – Green Paper
To: Department of Climate Change, GPO Box 854, Canberra ACT 2601
Email: emissionstrading@climatechange.gov.au
Authors: Colin Austin; Xuilan Tang
Date: 29 August 2008
Confidentiality: The submission is not intended to be treated as confidential or anonymous.
Contact: Colin Austin, 55 Kookaburra Park Eco Village, Gin Gin, Queensland 4671, Email: colinaustin@bigpond.com, Tel: 07 4157 2278, Mob: 041 5851 542
Cover Letter to the Department
Dear Sirs,
We have pleasure in presenting our contribution to the Green Paper submission. This submission shows how Australia can help rapidly developing countries, with a particular emphasis on China, to achieve carbon balance and commit to future international protocols by adopting the widely misunderstood technology of capturing carbon in the soil.
We have the technology. It has been developed over thirty years. It consists of a method of harvesting and controlling water to encourage microbiological activity which bonds carbon into the soil. The technology was originally developed to provide reliable food in regions with an arid and variable climate. This ability to harvest and capture water and carbon together has the potential to be a major factor in the fight against global warming. Widespread adoption in these countries would have a far greater impact than reducing Australian emissions.
If we as a nation want to protect ourselves from emissions, we have to be far more proactive than simply cutting our own emissions. We need to be part of a global strategy. There is inevitably an additional cost in absorbing carbon in the soil, hence a global trading scheme including carbon capture in the soil is essential as a way of providing a financial incentive to growers around the world.
Obviously we need to manage our own emissions to gain international credibility. But we must do more than that. We must work with these developing countries, particularly China, to help them establish the technology in their countries. We also need to work with them to ensure that carbon capture in the soil is included in the next post-Kyoto international agreement.
Many dedicated people, often working with international NGOs, have introduced this technology to poorer countries by promoting benefits such as improved water and nutrient holding capacity of soil to increase food production. However, this is not enough to make a significant impact on global warming. It requires international action at government level for technology transfer and implementing the international trading scheme to provide the financial incentive to growers.
Australia, as a wealthy arid country, a major exporter of both food and coal, with strong technical capability and stable international engagement, is positioned to lead. Whatever action we take to achieve carbon balance within Australia is almost irrelevant on a global scale. Our fate depends on what happens in China and the many other developing countries. This is not a woolly concept of world harmony. It is in our self-interest and may be the only way of protecting this country from the dangers of global warming.
It would be a historic day if Kevin Rudd, our Mandarin-speaking Prime Minister, were to send a memo to China saying: (1) we have the technology to help China achieve a carbon balance, (2) we want to work with China to introduce this technology into China, and (3) we want to work together to have this technology accepted into the next post-Kyoto agreement. That would be a turning point in the long-term battle for a sustainable planet and open the door for the hard work to begin.
This submission is not intended to be a manual on the technology; we are willing to provide further technical details on request. As we are involved in significant travel we suggest communication by email to colinaustin@bigpond.com.
Yours faithfully,
Colin Austin
About the Authors
Colin Austin is an Australian innovator who pioneered the Moldflow technology, now accepted worldwide, and built a company that became a leading exporter of technical software. He has been involved in sustainable food production throughout his life, leading to the development of wicking bed systems for carbon capture.
Xuilan Tang is a Chinese national and medical doctor whose experiences range from remote Xinjiang during the Cultural Revolution to working as a surgeon in the Chinese medical system. She is now in Australia studying carbon capture and wicking bed technology.
Part 1: Climate Change Is a Global Problem
The Green Paper outlines dangers such as disruption to agriculture, damage to the Murray-Darling Basin, threats to the Barrier Reef, water supply risks, coastal impacts, and storm damage. Some argue Australia’s contribution to global warming is small and that we should not jeopardise industry until developing countries curb emissions.
It is true that Australia’s emissions are not the primary cause of warming felt in Australia today. Much of today’s warming reflects long-term accumulation by developed countries. However, future emissions will be dominated by developing countries, with China as a lead contributor. This submission examines what Australia can do to assist developing countries to manage carbon balance, focusing on China because of direct experience and expertise.
China: The Key to Protecting Australia from Global Warming
China is under pressure to act. It is sensitive to climate impacts: desertification in the north, and flood and storm damage in the south. In addition, early industrial expansion occurred with limited environmental controls, causing severe damage, particularly to water resources. This has created higher environmental sensitivity and willingness to accept change.
But major obstacles remain. China is not economically homogeneous. A substantial middle class exists alongside a large rural population living in poverty. Families make sacrifices to educate children who then migrate to cities seeking work, partly due to cultural expectation that children will support ageing parents. This creates a powerful, ongoing push toward affluence and energy use. Even if China wanted to join a Kyoto-style absolute cut protocol, it would be extremely difficult to meet pledges in practice. The brutal reality is that, without a new approach, emissions from developing countries will continue to grow, potentially at increasing rates.
Solution: Assist China to Absorb Carbon
Technology for capturing carbon in soil would allow China to reduce net emissions and take part in international protocols. Kyoto has been largely silent on this route, which has effectively blocked a practical pathway for developing countries to participate. This omission may be a global tragedy in hindsight.
Revolving Carbon and a Common Misconception
Plants absorb around thirty times all man-made emissions. The catch is that most carbon absorbed by plants re-enters the atmosphere without being captured in soil. Carbon cycles from atmosphere into plants and back again, driven by oxidation and decomposition, including the destructive combination of oxygen and UV light and certain forms of microbiological action.
Because of this, many people assume carbon capture in soil is impractical. Science correctly notes that long-term carbon storage (coal, oil, and large soil carbon reserves) required specific conditions, especially waterlogged or high-water-table environments, and occurred over long periods. It is also true that simply mixing organic material into soil does not guarantee stabilisation; it may be washed out, oxidised, or decomposed back into CO₂. The error is extrapolating from these truths to the sweeping claim that carbon cannot be captured effectively in soil. That conclusion is wrong in general, even if it can be right in specific contexts.
Why This Matters for Policy
If carbon capture in soil is recognised and paid for, it offers a practical route for China and similar countries to join international agreements. This is more valuable to Australia’s long-term safety than arguing only about Australia’s domestic cuts, because Australia’s fate is tied to global totals. If we want to protect ourselves, we must help create workable mechanisms for large-scale adoption in countries that will dominate future emissions.
Design of a Carbon Soil Capture System
Large-scale emitters can measure emissions and manage complex contracts. Farmers and growers are different: often small operators with limited technical capacity and little appetite for bureaucracy. Any trading scheme must therefore be simple, predictable, and practical.
This submission proposes an intermediate “wholesale–retail” organisation (licensed by government) to support growers. Its roles would include publishing and maintaining a “ready reckoner” that converts quantities of organic material (by type) into estimated carbon-equivalent captured in soil, and spot-checking those estimates against actual soil measurements. The organisation could also provide monitoring services and trading access, acting as a practical bridge between growers and carbon markets.
Growers also need certainty. Soil carbon can be measured retrospectively, but businesses need forward planning. A workable system must help growers estimate earnings in advance, so they can decide whether to participate and at what scale.
Carbon capture at farm level will often require additional organic inputs. Some organic matter exists on-farm, but in many cases capture will be limited unless growers augment it: by purchasing waste material from other farms, managing storage and transport, or growing biomass specifically for carbon capture on otherwise unproductive land. Over time, this could create local markets for waste organic material and encourage deliberate biomass production for soil building.
Growers will not take on additional labour and cost without compensation. A trading scheme must therefore pay for soil carbon capture, while recognising that growers will also benefit from improved soil quality, increased nutrient availability, and reduced fertiliser dependence.
Secondary Effects and Sustainability
Any large program can create unintended harm if viewed narrowly. The submission notes examples such as corn-based ethanol contributing to food pressures, and palm oil expansion causing deforestation. Soil carbon schemes must therefore be evaluated for food production impacts and long-term sustainability.
Setting aside land for regeneration could reduce the area under immediate food production. However, the wicking bed system can deliver higher productivity than conventional production, with the magnitude depending on baseline conditions. In well-watered regions with young fertile soils, increases may be modest. In low rainfall, nutrient-poor, or degraded environments (large parts of Australia and northern China), productivity gains may be substantial. In drought-affected Queensland, wicking beds can be the difference between production and no production. On balance, the net effect is argued to be a significant increase in food security where it is most fragile.
The submission also frames soil carbon capture as more than a climate measure. Modern agriculture often mines carbon and nutrients from soil; nutrients enter the food chain and are frequently lost to the sea, then replaced with fertilisers. Increasing soil carbon and recycling organic material restores soil structure, water holding capacity, and biological function. These co-benefits may be as important as carbon capture itself.
Part 2: Why China Will Dominate Future Emissions
This section uses a technology adoption story to explain why China’s trajectory is difficult to slow. Colin Austin describes encountering early microcomputers over 35 years prior, developing computer-aided engineering for plastics mould design, and founding Moldflow. Adoption in developed countries was initially resisted and then gradually accepted.
China presented a different pattern. Early visits showed crude manufacturing and weak design capability. Yet China’s attitude toward technology was highly receptive. Rather than incremental improvement, China often leapfrogs by importing the best available machinery and training, and putting young graduates to work on advanced systems. China’s “moving front” includes affluent regions using modern technology and less developed regions behind it. This capacity for rapid, large-scale adoption matters: if China decides to adopt soil carbon capture technologies, it can move quickly.
The submission also notes that the early phase of industrialisation caused severe pollution, especially to water systems. Because much water originates from the Tibetan plateau and travels long distances, pollution accumulates along the way. China has been motivated to act on environmental issues, even with varying success.
China’s emissions challenge is driven by a continual shift of millions of people from poverty to middle-class lifestyles. It is practically impossible, and ethically questionable, to demand that those on the edge of affluence remain poor while wealthy countries continue high-emission habits. Even large clean-energy projects can be outpaced by demand growth; the submission uses the example that the Three Gorges project’s expected share of national energy shrank as demand grew.
Therefore, the paper argues that emissions in China and other developing countries will rise over coming decades and will dwarf Australia’s domestic reductions. Australia must respond with strategies that scale internationally, including enabling net reductions through soil carbon capture.
Part 3: Absorbing Carbon in the Soil
From Dust Storms to Soil Regeneration
In the late 1970s and early 1980s Australia suffered severe dust storms, losing millions of tonnes of topsoil. This triggered a long-term research program aimed at regenerating soil faster than natural rates commonly described as millimetres per century. Early trials testing single products and processes largely failed. Multi-variable experiments produced pockets of success, but results initially defied clean analysis.
A key discovery was that soil moisture was not uniform; underground fissures created sub-surface flow patterns. Soil regeneration failed in saturated bog-like areas and in dry areas. It also failed when organic material remained a separate phase, simply mixed with mineral soil. Success occurred when moisture and inputs enabled microbiology to bind organic material into a genuinely homogeneous soil structure.
Primary and Secondary Bonds (A Simple Engineering Analogy)
The submission explains bonding using polymer science. Primary bonds form strong chains within molecules, while secondary bonds (often called Van der Waals forces) create attraction between molecules, giving materials bulk strength. Without secondary bonding, materials would behave like noodles in soup—strong individually, weak as a whole. The same idea applies to soil: microbiological action at particle surfaces enables secondary bonding that integrates organic matter into stable soil structure rather than leaving it as a loose mixture. Moisture balance is critical for that biology.
Water Research and the Wicking Bed Breakthrough
As attention shifted toward water management and degradation in the Murray–Darling Basin, Colin sold Moldflow and formed a specialist research team to pursue speculative environmental solutions. Subsurface irrigation faced practical constraints. Intelligent irrigation control based on soil moisture sensing was technically successful but too sophisticated for widespread farmer uptake without major education programs, which were not supported.
Work then shifted toward sustenance food in developing countries, including Ethiopia. There, famine was not simply about low rainfall in deserts, but about variability in higher rainfall areas, small rains that evaporate without benefit, and short breaks in rain at critical crop stages. A cheap, practical method was needed to harvest small rains and store water for key growth periods.
The resulting solution was the wicking bed: a trench lined with polythene to form an underground water reservoir, refilled with soil, and optionally loaded with organic material at the base. Extensions include using polythene as a catchment surface to amplify rainfall and harvest small rains that usually fail to penetrate dry soil. These systems created higher productivity than expected, partly because the wicking action maintains moist-but-not-saturated conditions, ideal for plant growth and for microbiology that converts organics into stable soil.
Carbon Capture Mechanisms and the Role of Biology
Wicking beds developed for food security also support carbon capture. In degraded soils, weeds and biomass can be harvested and incorporated to increase nutrient and water-holding capacity. However, capturing carbon effectively requires the right biological chain: microbes, fungi, and larger soil organisms, especially worms.
The submission distinguishes pathways. Some aerobic bacterial activity can return significant carbon to the atmosphere; fungi in moist, less aerobic conditions can be more effective at stabilising carbon. Worms distribute carbon and help bond organic material to soil particles as soil passes through their guts. Different worm types perform different functions, including deep-burrowing species that move carbon deeper into the ground and create porous structures that hold water and nutrients.
This biology-based bonding addresses the core skepticism: organic matter near the surface or loosely mixed is vulnerable to oxidation, UV breakdown, washout, and decomposition back to CO₂. Managing moisture and biological processes so organic matter becomes a stable, homogeneous composite and is buried deeper changes the outcome materially.
Global Warming and the Law of the Commons
The submission warns of “law of the commons” dynamics: individuals or groups act in short-term self-interest and collectively destroy a shared asset. In climate policy, this appears as arguments like “why should we cut if others won’t.” Without a credible pathway for developing countries to participate, this dynamic can dominate and produce dire outcomes.
Recognising soil carbon capture within international protocols is presented as the practical route for China and other developing countries to join agreements, making cooperation rational rather than naïve.
Message for the Australian Government
The authors express a desire to help transfer technology internationally, including to China. But scattered adoption based only on local benefits will not scale sufficiently to affect global warming. Wicking beds can increase labour, but in many developing contexts those costs are modest compared with climate risks. Still, growers need to be paid for carbon they absorb. That requires a mechanism: include soil carbon capture within trading schemes now. The technology has been under development for over thirty years and can be applied immediately. The submission emphasises the need for political mechanisms to match available technology.
Summary of Benefits
- Soil carbon capture using wicking bed technology provides a way for developing countries, particularly China, to cut net emissions and join international carbon protocols.
- Without change, developing-country emissions will dominate future atmospheric carbon loads.
- This approach offers a realistic way to protect Australia from the impacts of global warming.
- Wicking bed systems improve soil quality, recycle waste organic material, improve water efficiency, and strengthen food security.
Good Reading and References Mentioned
- Gabriel Walker, An Ocean of Air, Harcourt, ISBN 978-0-15-101124-7.
- Ted Nield, Supercontinent: Ten Billion Years in the Life of Our Planet, Harvard University Press, ISBN 978-0-067-02659-9.
- Geoffrey Murray and Ian G. Cook, The Greening of China, China Intercontinental Press (Beijing), 2004, ISBN 7508505867.
- Fred Krupp and Miriam Horn, Earth: The Sequel — The Race to Reinvent Energy and Stop Global Warming, W. W. Norton, ISBN 978-0-0-393-06690-6.
Further Reading Mentioned
- The unacceptable realities of global warming (extract of talk at the IIA conference, 2008).
- “Wicking beds and Global warming” — Colin Austin, paper presented at the IAA conference, Melbourne 2008.
Colin Austin — © Creative Commons. Reproduction permitted for private use with source acknowledgment; commercial use requires a license.
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