Policy Considerations for Mandating Agriculture in a Greenhouse Gas Emissions Trading Scheme

The question of whether or not the agricultural sector should be covered in a GHG ETS is prominent in policy debates surrounding the design and implementation of such proposed schemes in many developed nations. This paper identifies two key economic elements that determine both the costs and the benefits of mandating agriculture in an ETS. These are: the costs of reducing GHG emissions in agriculture, and the transactions costs pertinent to covering agriculture in an ETS. Published data on these elements is used to derive a likely range of the overall social costs of mandating the agricultural sector in a GHG ETS. Current indicators of those costs for agriculture, and for the other sectors of the economy, do not offer evidence that mandating agriculture in an ETS would be socially beneficial. Alternative approaches to engaging the agricultural sector in GHG emission reduction, e.g. through voluntary opt-in or through offsetting credits, are likely to be more beneficial. Copyright 2011, Oxford University Press.