The Federal Government has shortlisted a methodology proposed by the NSW Government as part of their Australian Carbon Credit Unit (ACCU) scheme. The "Improved Native Forest Management in Multiple-use Public Forests" methodology proposes to generate carbon credits to be traded for hard to mitigate emissions as part of decarbonisation of industry.
Greens MP and spokesperson for the Environment and Climate Change Sue Higginson said "It is deeply disappointing that the NSW Minns Labor Government is so focussed on our precious native forests as sources of income through trading carbon credits. It is a perverse windfall to the biggest climate polluters operating in Australia, that we will allow them to buy out the carbon in our forests, for their own profit and so they can avoid their responsibility to decarbonise,"
"We cannot allow the protection of our native forests from logging to be reliant on a carbon trading scheme - native forests, free from logging, are inherently valuable and should be accounted as one of our greatest assets. Our forests are our front line defence against the worst impacts of climate change and they are the best mechanism we have to draw down and store carbon - to then try to exploit this anymore is just policy failure,"
"Right now in NSW we are industrially logging our forests, which are of global significance and the refugia for some of the world's most unique and threatened plants and animals. Logging is currently driving the extinction crisis, making our forests more susceptible to increased and more intense fires, and it is costing the NSW public millions of dollars in losses and subsidies,"
"Carbon markets have been notoriously difficult to manage with integrity, because the producer of emissions and the seller of credits both have a pecuniary interest in either underselling or overselling their side of the equation. To date, I have not seen any evidence that the NSW or Australian Governments will be able to manage this type of market any better than other places around the world. The NSW Minns Labor Government should just get on with the job in front of them and end native forest logging as an immediate priority" Ms Higginson said.
