Study - Australia's Carbon Credit Plan A "Failure On A Global Scale"
Australia’s main carbon offsets method is a failure on a global scale and doing little if anything to help address the climate crisis, according to a major new study. Research by 11 academics found the most popular technique used to create offsets in Australia, known as “human-induced regeneration” and pledged to regenerate scrubby outback forests, had mostly not improved tree cover as promised between about 2015 and 2022.
The peer-reviewed study, published in the nature journal Communications Earth & Environment, analysed 182 projects in arid and semi-desert areas and found forest cover had either barely grown or gone backwards in nearly 80%. The academics said it meant these projects were therefore not reducing emissions as promised, and polluting companies that bought offsets created through these projects were often not reducing their impact on the climate as they claimed.
They said this was a globally significant problem as Australia’s forest regeneration method is the world’s fifth biggest nature-based offsets program, with projects covering nearly 42m hectares, an area larger than Japan. More than 37m carbon credits – each meant to be worth a tonne of CO2 drawn from the atmosphere and worth between $750m and $1bn – had been issued for these projects by June last year.
The authors of the study include Andrew Macintosh, an environmental law professor at the Australian National University (ANU), a former head of a carbon credit integrity assurance body and more recently a sharp critic of the management of the scheme. Two years ago he described it as a “sham” and a fraud on taxpayers and the environment.
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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/mar/27/australias-carbon-credits-system-a-failure-on-global-scale-study-finds