Poor performance in Australia's forest regrowing carbon sequestration credit scheme

Discussion in 'Environment & Conservation' started by kazenatsu, Oct 13, 2024.

  1. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    This shows the incompetence of the Australian government. A big waste of money, on a policy that was never actually going to work very well.
    I think this was just an easy less expensive way for the government to say or think that that they were actually doing something to fight "climate change", regardless of how effective it would actually be. It seems the policy was not well-planned or executed properly.

    Replanting forests is a noble and laudable pursuit. But apparently the replanting hasn't been very well carried out, and was very often carried out in lower value arid land where there was inadequate rainfall for forest to be able to grow.


    One of the largest types of carbon offset projects the Australian government is using to meet climate change targets and reduce carbon in the atmosphere is failing to do so, new research has shown.

    The projects aim to regenerate native forests across large parts of Australia, but analysis shows most of the selected areas have never had forests, are unsuitable for forest regeneration and are not producing the increase in tree canopy cover that projects are being credited for.

    Australian human-induced forest regeneration (HIR) projects are the largest carbon removal nature-based offset type in the world. They are supposed to be regenerating permanent, even-aged native forests across millions of hectares of Australia's dry outback, primarily by reducing grazing pressure from livestock and feral animals.

    The projects cover 42 million hectares--an area significantly larger than Japan--and, to date, they have received more than 45 million Australian carbon credit units (ACCUs) (30% of all ACCUs issued under the Australian carbon offset scheme), worth approximately $1 billion.

    New research conducted by 10 leading researchers from The Australian National University (ANU), University of New South Wales (UNSW) and Haizea Analytics has found extreme levels of non-compliance with key regulatory requirements in 116 of these human-induced regeneration (HIR) projects, and that the projects have had little impact on tree cover and carbon sequestration.

    A study from the Australian National University and University of New South Wales found that 95% of the credited area is located on land that has not previously been comprehensively cleared, meaning the projects are trying to regenerate native forests on uncleared land which may have never contained forests.
    And 29% of the credited area had forest cover when the projects started, meaning they are trying to regenerate native forests on land that already had forest cover when the projects began.

    Apparently the checks are lenient, allowing projects to pass based on pre-existing tree cover, even if tree cover has not increased. The analysis also occurred at the end of a rare run of three consecutive wet years (2020–23), when canopy cover will naturally be higher than usual.
    Also alarming is that the analysis also occurred at the end of a rare run of three consecutive wet years (2020-23), when canopy cover will naturally be higher than usual.

    There is a very large disparity between the levels of credited sequestration and the observed levels of canopy cover change.

    Dr. Megan Evans from UNSW Canberra:
    "A decade ago, there was great hope that carbon markets could cost-effectively restore biodiversity where it has been destroyed by clearing, largely in Australia's agricultural zones. Now, we're seeing that 95% of the places being paid to restore forests occur in largely remote inland areas that have never actually been cleared of forests. Our new findings point to such huge failures that it's almost beyond belief."

    Professor Don Butler from ANU:
    "Our new findings suggest the observed changes in tree cover are predominantly attributable to factors other than the project activities, most likely rainfall."​

    'Widespread noncompliance and poor performance' in world's largest nature-based carbon removal projects , Phys.org , October 11, 2024
    Non-compliance and under-performance in Australian human-induced regeneration projects, Andrew Macintosh, The Rangeland Journal, 2024
     

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