Carbon credits must represent real net abatement

DEAR News Of The Area,

ANDREW Vivian’s article, “Improved Native Forest Management method divides conservationists”, (Page 9, Coffs Coast NOTA, 18/9/26) accurately reports the political split over the INFM method, but the debate should not be reduced to whether conservationists are comfortable with carbon offsets.

The more fundamental question is whether the carbon credits themselves represent genuine, additional net abatement.

The INFM method creates Australian Carbon Credit Units by comparing forests where harvesting is stopped with a modelled harvesting baseline. Its own Explanatory Statement says credited abatement must be “additional to business-as-usual”, meaning it would not have occurred without the incentive provided by ACCUs.

That makes the Great Koala National Park chronology highly relevant.

As Mr Vivian notes, the NSW Government promised the GKNP before taking office. If forest protection was already Government policy, the public is entitled to see the evidence demonstrating what harvesting genuinely would have occurred without carbon-credit revenue.

There are also unresolved accounting questions. Forestry Australia’s forest-carbon specialists have estimated that the INFM methodology could over-credit projects by 40–100 per cent before the full effects of leakage and harvested wood products are considered. (Forestry Australia) Research presented by University of Queensland forest economist Dr Tyron Venn estimates that 81.3 per cent of reductions in Australian native-forest timber production have historically been displaced to imports. (Australian Forest and Wood Innovations) Yet the INFM method limits its indirect leakage deduction to a maximum of 40 per cent. (Federal Register of Legislation)

Restricting who may ultimately purchase particular credits does not resolve those accounting questions. A credit first has to represent a genuine tonne of net abatement.

There is another issue deserving scrutiny. The method requires a 100-year permanence period but provides only a 15-year crediting period. (Federal Register of Legislation) It also expressly permits a project proponent other than the State, provided State approval is obtained, while the specific post-crediting ACCU cancellation obligation in section 18 is expressed as applying to a proponent that is the State or State Government. (Federal Register of Legislation)

These are not arguments about whether people like national parks or carbon markets. They are questions about additionality, leakage, modelling, permanence and accountability.

Those questions remain regardless of how the Senate voted.

Regards,

Steve Dobbyns,

Jamax Forest Solutions,

Beechwood, NSW.