Source : the age
The Greens have split over whether to allow state governments to earn carbon credits for protecting public forests, with most of its senators defying calls from former leaders Bob Brown and Christine Milne to side with the Nationals and block the scheme.
Three Greens senators crossed the floor to support the National Party’s disallowance motion in a vote on Thursday afternoon, but the government had the numbers with the support of seven Greens, one dissenting Liberal, and key independents.
This can be used by any state government, but it immediately paves the way for the NSW government to earn carbon credits from the creation of the Great Koala National Park in northern NSW as part of a broader commitment to reduce logging in the state.
NSW Environment Minister Penny Sharpe said the state government would introduce legislation as soon as possible once the project was approved by the Clean Energy Regulator. “Today is an important milestone to protect koalas in the wild,” she said.
Greens leader Larissa Waters said the party had secured changes to improve the scheme, and would prosecute their broader concerns about Labor’s signature climate policy, the Safeguard Mechanism and the associated Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCUs) through other avenues.
“After careful consideration of complex regulation, the Greens have secured important new protections for native forests, including a legal precedent to stop coal and gas using offsets, significantly reduce logging, and immediately protect forests,” Waters said.
“The Greens party room has resolved to support the improved INFM because forest and habitat is critical to prevent endangered species from extinction as well as the climate.”
The Improved Native Forest Management (INFM) method under the Australian Carbon Credit Unit (ACCU) scheme was put forward by the NSW government in 2024, and approved by the Albanese government in June.
NSW Environment Minister Penny Sharpe and Treasurer Daniel Mookhey wrote to Bowen and Wilson on Monday committing that the ACCUs would be prioritised for NSW manufacturers and not be sold to the fossil fuel industry, and that any revenue from the ACCUs would be spent on enhancing management of the Great Koala National Park.
The letter, seen by this masthead, also extended that commitment to any hypothetical future project using the INFM. Sharpe has previously said the carbon credits would make it “easier” to consider a proposal for an even bigger national park proposed for the NSW-Victoria border.
A statement from Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen and Assistant Climate Change Minister Josh Wilson on Thursday confirmed the “sensible adjustments” the government had made to secure support for the carbon credit method in the Senate.
This included enabling the Clean Energy Regulator to give effect to the Minns government’s promise not to sell the credits to fossil fuel projects, increasing the amount of forest that must be protected against established harvesting baselines before credits are issued, and clarifying the definition of plantation versus native forest in the method.
The Greens senators who crossed the floor were Jordon Steele-John from Western Australia and Nick McKim and Vanessa Bleyer from Tasmania.
The NSW Greens had urged their federal colleagues to allow the method to stand because it could be a pathway to end native forest logging, and they fear the alternative with a timber-industry ACCU method that would allow logging to continue. The WA Greens were lobbying the opposite position.
Antipathy to carbon credits clashed with the historic opportunity to protect forests meant the environmental movement was split in two. The Australia Institute, Wilderness Society and Wilderness Australia were among the opponents of the carbon credits concept, and Greenpeace, the Australian Climate and Biodiversity Foundation, NSW Nature Conservation Council, scientist and author Professor Tim Flannery, ecologist Professor David Lindenmayer among the supporters.
The Greens have also signalled they will open a broader fight on their concerns with Labor’s signature climate policy, the Safeguard Mechanism and the associated Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCUs).
Waters said the party would oppose Labor’s Carbon Credits (Integrity and Transparency) Bill and moving to disallow the Integrated Farm and Land Management method, which replaces the human-induced regeneration method criticised by ANU Professor Andrew Macintosh as generating junk credits from growing trees in the desert.
“We do not support Labor’s system of accounting tricks instead of pollution reduction, which is why we also announce today that we will move to significantly increase the cost of polluting by opposing 40 per cent of the carbon credit market,” Waters said.
Macintosh helped develop the forest method for the NSW government, but says the farm and land management method should be blocked in its current form.
Brown said he understood why environmentalists including Greens MPs felt they had to accept this “Labor fix” and Minns Labor was “the villain” for welching on an election promise.
“The creation of future national parks, always previously based on their natural, cultural and spiritual values, has suddenly become more likely to depend on the big end of town getting a dividend such as cheap carbon credits,” Brown said. “Money rules.”
Dr Richard Denniss, co-chief executive of Australia Institute, said: “The task of stopping Australia’s expansion of coal and gas is going to become a little harder today.”
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Caitlin Fitzsimmons is the environment and climate reporter for The Sydney Morning Herald. She was previously the social affairs reporter and the Money editor.Connect via email.
