"A lot of the time you can have a permit to clear, but you never actually had any intention of doing so. Megan Evans, an expert in environmental governance from the University of New South Wales, said this problem had been acknowledged by many before, but not quantified until now. "Something really doesn't add up," Mr Merzian said. It means the government is assuming that clearing an area that would have previously taken between 128 and 1,936 years would have occurred in just 15 years, according to the report. They examined past rates of deforestation and compared them to the amount of deforestation claimed to have been avoided through these ACCUs.Įven just looking at the land that generated ACCUs by simply not being cleared, the government has paid for avoided deforestation that would have represented a 750 per cent increase in clearing rates, had it occurred. Not 'enough bulldozers in NSW' for assumed clearingĪccording to the report authors, there is simply no way all the emissions reductions paid for by those credits are real. More than a fifth of the money spent through that fund has already gone to that method.Īnd it is a common source of credits sold to organisations as offsets. So far, the government has committed to spending more than $300 million on ACCUs created through "avoided deforestation" via the ERF. The ERF is a $4.5 billion reverse auction that buys ACCUs at the cheapest rate someone is willing to sell them for. The emission reduction needs to fit into one of a set of "methodologies", one of which is "avoided deforestation".ĪCCUs are used as "offsets" by companies that want to reduce their carbon footprint. After a company reduces emissions as much as it can, it buys offset credits to make up for its remaining emissions.īut offsets are also the central plank of Australia's main emissions reduction policy, the Emissions Reduction Fund (ERF). They are created when someone avoids creating emissions that would otherwise have occurred, or when they remove emissions from the atmosphere, and they are regulated by the federal government through the Clean Energy Regulator. "Our research shows that many of Australia's carbon credits could be little more than hot air." What are carbon credits and how do they work?Īustralian carbon credit units (ACCUs) are some of the most respected forms of carbon offsets in the world. "This method of accounting sees taxpayer dollars paying to retain vegetation that was never going to be cleared," Mr Merzian said. It would also raise questions about Australia's key emissions reduction policy, as well as the offsets many people and organisations buy. The findings have been rejected by the federal government and the Carbon Markets Institute, an organisation that represents carbon traders.īut, if the report is right, it means many carbon credits created through "avoided deforestation" essentially do nothing to reduce emissions. "It's like paying someone not to drive to work when they never drove to begin with," said Richie Merzian from the Australia Institute, one of the report authors. It found the amount of "avoided" deforestation - paid for by carbon offset schemes - could not have realistically occurred in the first place. But do all of those offsets actually make a difference?Īccording to a new analysis by the Australia Institute and The Australian Conservation Foundation, the answer is: "often not".
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