Carbon credit schemes are actually destroying the environment

Environment and Communications Legislation Committee – 04/11/2024 – Estimates – CLIMATE CHANGE, ENERGY, THE ENVIRONMENT AND WATER PORTFOLIO – Clean Energy Regulator

Senator RENNICK: I was actually going to ask you what the purpose of the Clean Energy Regulator is, but you administer schemes. So that’s good to know. But I do like Senator Roberts’s term ‘concocted’; I think that’s a very apt term—and in particular the Carbon Credit Scheme, because that’s something that I’m very interested in, coming from south-west Queensland, because a lot of properties are being locked up out there because they want to treat the mulga as capturing carbon credits. But here’s the thing: the mulga already was sucking up oxygen before this scheme was ever concocted. So how is it that you can create a scheme around trees sucking up CO2 when they were sucking up CO2 in the first place? I mean, paying someone to have a tree that sucks up CO2 doesn’t really change anything, does it?

Mr Binning: Senator—

Senator RENNICK: I will ask the second part of the question as well so then you can answer the whole lot in totality. The other thing is locking up this mulga is actually destroying the undergrowth. Right? So you’re basically—the more mulga you get above, the leaves drop and the leaves are toxic to the ground, so you lose your ground cover. So you’re actually encouraging mulga to grow, which I might add stops growing after 20 years, is basically destroying the ground cover and the environment that goes with it.

Mr Binning: The methodology I think you’re referring to is the human induced regeneration method. It’s a method that has had a lot of commentary, has been extensively reviewed and been the subject of a lot of questions, including in this committee. Without taking too much time, in order to register a project, a proponent would have had to demonstrate that they were taking management action that was essentially new. Halting land clearing, reduced grazing are examples. And once qualified for the project, they must essentially stratify their landscape into areas of carbon estimation and then very detailed processes for accounting for the actual growth are undertaken. And so the removal of those suppressing activities in the broad will allow for ecological restoration within those areas. The management of that process is ultimately the responsibility of the proponent. Our interest lies in rigorously determining the level of carbon sequestration that is additional and has been achieved.

Senator RENNICK: Okay. Thank you. In terms of that environmental restoration, that’s my point—that you’re not restoring the environment out there at all, because a lot of that country out in south-west Queensland was originally grasslands and it has now been taken over by mulga, which is a form of a woody weed. I mean, it’s a native, but it’s fair to say that it was a lot thinner. I’ve seen the change in the 35 years I’ve been out there, from paddocks with next to no mulga, to now paddocks with big mulga. And once it gets above a certain height, the sheep can’t eat it anyway. So you can talk about reduced grazing, but that reduced grazing, you’re just going to end up with mulga forests out there that are going nowhere. And it is not good with the environment. What’s happened is these farms are being locked up; farmers are selling out for big money. So they’re no longer managing the farms. So you’re getting dingos, goats, pigs coming in, wild cats coming in because the land is not being managed. The fences are deteriorating. So, yet again, I have an issue with how this scheme is being administered and why we’d be paying farmers to walk away from managing the land.

Mr Binning: It’s hard to comment about specific experiences in specific parts of the Australian landscape, but—

Senator RENNICK: Well, it’s not, because if you’re doing your job properly you would understand the mulga. And I’m happy to take you out there and show you what it looks like after we have actually done some clearing and the grass comes up through and then what it’s like when it’s not cleared. Because you can see straight away the soil just seals—the red soil just seals. You get more water run-off. You get more erosion.

Mr Binning: As I was saying, we will see a variety of responses from the ecosystem and from ecology to a change in management, and the responsibility for managing those changes rests with the proponent. I would note that, of course, new market signals could create a range of behaviour amongst project proponents. Our responsibilities are to track the carbon account that result from the change in that, but I would note that we have certainly had feedback from many stakeholders from south-west Queensland, New South Wales, I was recently in Western Australia, where the revenue streams that are being generated through Australian Carbon Credit Units are, in fact, allowing land owners to re-establish on-farm infrastructure, and in those range land systems, particularly boundary fences and the management of watering points. So I have no—

Senator RENNICK: That’s right [inaudible] they’ll neglect one half the of the paddock or what was formerly their property, and they will go and upgrade the other part of the property. But you’re picking sides there, because, overall, you get a deterioration in the environment in the part that’s being locked up.

Senator Ayres: I’m just not sure that these are questions for the officials here. I mean, the approach that a property owner takes within the regulations, is a matter for them. They have to make judgements—

Senator RENNICK: That’s right. But I’m not speaking about what actions they are taking. I’m speaking about the regulations here. They are not achieving. They’re not looking after the environment, Minister.

Senator Ayres: They have to make judgements about whether they participate in the scheme or not and the—

Senator RENNICK: They are going to participate, because it’s huge money. It’s huge money for some people—not for all of them, for the neighbours that miss out and get the wild pigs and goats and the bushfire risk. But that’s all right. There’s winners and losers.