Before you trash carbon offsets, ask who pays for conservation
Let me put this right up front – this is not a defence of the federal government's Climate Active scheme. It is not perfect and should be improved.
Nor is this an attempt to suggest that offsetting emissions using carbon credits is a substitute for actual emissions reductions. I am also not trying to defend companies that greenwash and suggest that the purchase of carbon offsets somehow neutralises the climate impacts of their business activities, or is a substitute for direct emissions reduction.
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ABC News
5 days ago
- ABC News
Logan City Council to pull out of federal government Climate Active program due to financial pressure, transparency concerns
Queensland's only certified carbon neutral council is set lose that title, blaming the rising cost of delivering services and successive natural disasters for its inability to fund the process. Logan City Council, south of Brisbane, said it also had concerns around transparency and where the funds it was paying to be certified were going. The council is one of 14 local governments around Australia registered with the federal government's Climate Active program. To achieve carbon neutrality through the Climate Active program, businesses or organisations calculate their emissions from their operations and then seek to reduce them through technological or operational changes. The remainder is offset by buying carbon credits. Logan Mayor Jon Raven said leaving the program would save the council about $1.5 million, which it is spending on overseas carbon credits each year. Mr Raven said the council did a lot of carbon offsetting itself, through running rooftop solar on its building, generating natural gas from landfill and hydrogen from wastewater treatment. "[But] no one's been able to confirm where that money goes or show us any concrete evidence it is actually being spent to improve the environment. "I don't believe we were carbon neutral when we were just sending money overseas to projects no one could confirm existed. Carbon credits are a way for organisations like governments or businesses to pay for emissions-reducing projects, both in Australia or overseas, and use credits generated by these projects to offset their own emissions. Climate Active does not trade carbon credits. Instead, organisations go through online marketplaces and third parties to purchase eligible offsets. But the certification scheme has seen an exodus of companies leaving it in recent years. More than 100 companies, including Telstra, NRMA, Australia Post and major super funds have left Climate Active in the last 19 months. There have been calls to shut down the program over concerns about the efficacy of offset schemes. Australian National University regulatory and environmental markets expert Professor Andrew Macintosh said there was a lack of integrity when it came to both national and international carbon credits. Professor Macintosh is a non-executive director of Paraway Pastoral Company, which operates a number of carbon offset projects. "People have got carbon credits for making changes or reductions in emissions that would've occurred anyway," he said. He said there has been concern over some types of carbon credits being used on projects like wind farms in India that were already fully viable, while in Australia there were concerns another type of credit was being bought for natural forest regeneration in areas where there were no trees. "Talking to clients, talking to friends, I recommend they don't be certified under Climate Active because of the concerns about carbon offsets, because of transparency," he said. "This is one of the real tragedies, there are good projects out there and they're being tarred by the fact that both our government and other schemes around the world have allowed bad projects and rotten credits to be issued," Professor Macintosh said. "Logan City Council was certainly trying to do the right thing, but they probably can't tell the difference between good and bad credits." A spokesperson from the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water — which oversees Climate Active — said the government was "actively considering the future direction of the Climate Active program". "We recognise that Climate Active needs reform and that work is under way as a priority that will involve proper consultation," they said. "The Climate Active program continues to operate, certifying entities that have met the program requirements." The spokesperson said the federal government continues to work to ensure the integrity of the Australian Carbon Credit Unit (ACCU) Scheme following recent reviews by the Climate Change Authority, independent experts and the Australian National Audit Office. "These reviews have found the ACCU Scheme is well designed, well administered, and contributing to Australia's transition to net zero by 2050," they said. The ABC understands six local governments have voluntarily withdrawn from the program in the past five years. Professor David Karoly from the Climate Council said the only way to slow climate change was by reducing both greenhouse gas emissions and the concentration of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere. "If we want to offset, we have to get it out of the atmosphere and store it away permanently," he said. He said for a carbon offset to make a difference it had to be "long-term in terms of storage, high-quality… and defensible and demonstrable in terms of reductions in emissions". "All of those issues for many of the international offsets are very hard to determine," Professor Karoly said. He said there needed to be stricter international quality assurance controls of offsets. Professor Karoly said there were a range of initiatives local governments could undertake to reduce emissions, including installing solar powers, upgrading their fleets to electric vehicles and planting more vegetation and trees. Mr Raven said the Logan council would use the money saved from funding carbon credits to buy degraded land for revegetation, purchasing high-quality habitat to protect it, as well as other local carbon offset projects. "It will mean we aren't carbon neutral certified, but it will mean we can say your ratepayer dollars are being spent in our city to the benefit of the environment," he said. "We've got no confidence that was happening with this program."
AU Financial Review
6 days ago
- AU Financial Review
Corporates go cold on carbon neutral scheme
A top climate consultant says a key federal government carbon neutrality program has fallen out of sync with measures companies are taking on sustainability. Mike Cox of multinational decarbonisation consultancy Schneider Electric said companies he worked with had almost completely abandoned the Climate Active program, which allows companies to make certified claims that their products are carbon neutral.
AU Financial Review
28-05-2025
- AU Financial Review
Before you trash carbon offsets, ask who pays for conservation
Let me put this right up front – this is not a defence of the federal government's Climate Active scheme. It is not perfect and should be improved. Nor is this an attempt to suggest that offsetting emissions using carbon credits is a substitute for actual emissions reductions. I am also not trying to defend companies that greenwash and suggest that the purchase of carbon offsets somehow neutralises the climate impacts of their business activities, or is a substitute for direct emissions reduction.
