• Carbon Credits are the main strategy used by the Australian government to penalise the biggest carbon emitters- namely the fossil-fuel companies mining and using coal and gas (like Santos and Woodside)-  and make them pay for not reducing their emissions! 
  • Mining and production companies and projects already operating and those in planning that are unable - or unwilling- to meet their emission levels established by the government have to buy 'green' Carbon Credits to offset the emissions they produce.
  • So what are Carbon Credits!
  • Carbon Credits are Certificates awarded by the government to companies/communities/projects who have demonstrated evidence [or in planned projects, the potential evidence] of 'permanent reduction in their carbon emissions'.  The number of Carbon Credits awarded form a market in which the Credits can be traded, bought and sold.
  • IN A NUTSHELL - the big polluters can still pollute and emit greenhouse gases as long as their emissions can be 'offset' by companies/projects/communities that are engaged in permanently reducing their emissions!  A sort of 'Robin Hood' reverse policy!
  • PROBLEM?? - The government has to find enough companies/projects that are permanently reducing their emissions to award Carbon Credits  so that there are enough Credits available to allow the big polluters to keep polluting! -  otherwise the emission targets that Australia has committed to internationally will not be reached!- and Australia doesn't reduce its emissions!
  • The major types of projects that have attracted Carbon Credits are those that have claimed to regenerate native forest in UNCLEARED land - land in which there is still some remnant forest. Their Carbon Credits have already been awarded!
  • The regeneration would generally be achieved by reducing the numbers of grazing livestock and feral animals (especially pigs and camels) . The regeneration would occur from seeds already in the soil and seedlings that otherwise would be eaten or trampled.
  • REGENERATION WOULD NOT OCCUR FROM PLANTING NEW TREES! - because the new plantings would not be able to compete with the established trees already there!
  • RECENT RESEARCH (see 'The Saturday Paper', March 30-April 5, 2024 pp10/11) however suggests that despite claims - there has been little if any regeneration!
  • A team from ANU, UNSW and UQ investigated 182 of the projects 'supposedly regenerating native forests' awarded Credit Certificates.  They covered in total 3.4 million hectares of dry country in Queensland, NSW and WA. 
  • The 182 projects received 97 million Carbon Credits! BUT- regeneration achieved was 0.18%!! In other words hardly any at all !!
  • WHY THIS ZERO RESULT - HERE'S THE SCAM!   153/182 PROJECTS  had NEVER had any CLEARED LAND!!  - and  it is NOT POSSIBLE to regenerate native forest in UNCLEARED land!  
  • To demonstrate any increase in native forest through natural regeneration by seed and sapling growth the land must have been CLEARED (usually by bulldozer and chains) and have mature trees  that PREVENT NEW PLANTED trees from growing! 
  •   BOTTOM LINE! The 153 projects awarded 27 million Carbon Credits are not going to regenerate ANY native forest!! 
  • Currently 468 similar projects across  42 million hectares (bigger than Japan) have received 42 million Carbon Credits - 40% of annual Credits awarded.
  • Why has the Government's Clean Energy Regulator awarded Carbon Credits to projects that were never going to produce any regenerated native forest??? -    HERE'S WHY!!!    (see 'The Saturday Paper',April 6-12, 2024, p6).
  • Example- SANTOS - $5.8 billion Barossa Gas drilling Project in the seas off Northern Territory and Timor - described as 'Australia's  dirtiest gas project ' and 'a carbon factory' and a 'carbon bomb'  - claims to use Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) to control its massive emissions - a strategy on which billions have been spent with little if any large-scale success- and a strategy many would say is unproven and dangerous - pumping carbon dioxide into old mining holes in the ground and oceans.  BUT-
  • In Santos's latest information, however, they now admit that 'CCS is now possible at some point in the future' but for now, 'CO2 will be vented into the air AND BE OFFSET BY SANTOS THROUGH PURCHASING CARBON CREDITS'!  ----

  • Carbon Credits granted FALSELY  to projects by the Government Clean Energy Council that make absolutely NO PERMANENT IMPACT TO REDUCE AUSTRALIA'S CARBON EMISSIONS SO THAT MASSIVE EMITTERS LIKE SANTOS & WOODSIDE CAN CONTINUE TO REFUSE TO CONTROL THEIR EMISSIONS, MAKE HUGE PROFITS AND PAY LITTLE TAX BY EXPORTING FOSSIL FUEL AND MORE EMISSIONS INTERNATIONALLY - for which they are totally unaccountable. 

    ** We need an independent investigation- maybe a Royal Commission- into the whole Carbon Credit scheme. The report described here just adds to the scams and corruption- and massive waste of taxpayers' money that the scheme has so far produced - with hardly any permanent impact on emissions - just made sure that there were enough Carbon Credits in the market to allow the major emitters and polluters to keep doing it with no real penalty - and not enough courage by government to put a stop to them!

    (David Smith for 'Electrifying Bradfield Inc.   10/4/2024)