Changes to cattle farming could lock-in carbon, a conference heard

Filling parts of the Sahara desert with mirrors to create clean energy and making livestock behave like herds of wildebeest to lock in carbon, were amongst a number of innovative proposals presented to help tackle climate change.

Innovators from across the world gathered in Manchester to present groundbreaking plans to a panel of experts on how green house gas emissions could be reduced.

The best proposals put forward at the Manchester International Festival could go on to become more widely used if they convince investors and policy makers.

Dr Gerry Wolff, formerly from the University of Wales, Bangor, advocated the use of mirrors to capture energy in places such as Africa's Sahara Desert.

Dr Wolff explained that mirrors positioned to reflect sunlight onto special power stations could provide huge amounts of energy.

He said: "The mirrors can focus the sun's rays and there is a lot of energy in these rays.

"The major attractions of this is it's very clean - there's very little pollution.

"You can store the electricity fairly cheaply, it's very quick to put up and can deliver power on demand. It's hard to think of any down sides."

The technology is already being installed in parts of North Africa and is supported in a number of European countries such as Spain.

Chartered accountant and farmer Tony Lovell from Queensland, Australia, told the conference that huge amounts of carbon could be stored by farming cows in a manner that mimics wild herds. He explained that the world's natural grasslands when grazed naturally by animals such as wildebeest, could lock in or sequester massive amounts of carbon.