With the carbon tax now in effect, farmers have the opportunity to earn money by selling carbon credits under the Government’s Carbon Farming Initiative.
Currently, there are only four approved methodologies through which carbon credits can be earned: one for capturing methane emissions from piggeries, native revegetation, savannah burning, and capturing gas from landfill sites.
The Government says seven more methodologies are now out for public comment, and more are in development by CSIRO, universities and industry.
The parliamentary secretary for climate change, Mark Dreyfus says approving methodologies takes time because a lot of the science is new and must be thoroughly tested.
He says Australian farmers will benefit from having to meet high standards to earn carbon credits.
“Australia comes to this with a very high reputation for scientific integrity, for regulatory integrity.
“We’re expecting that Australian carbon credits will be in world demand for those reasons.
“People have got to recognise that we’re at the start of a very long-term transformation of the Australian economy, we are at the start of activities in the land sector that are going to be going on for many, many years to come and we’re in that transition period.”
To ensure that credits generated by the scheme meet the strictest global standards, the committment asked of farmers is significant.
To earn credits for native revegetation projects, for example, that land must be locked up for 100 years.
But Mark Dreyfus says the good news is that farmers will not face financial penalties if the credits they’ve earned are destroyed by a bushfire or drought.
The Coalition, meanwhile, says it’s committed to repealing the carbon tax, but supports the Carbon Farming Initiative and will honour carbon credits earned under the scheme.
But shadow environment minister Greg Hunt says the Coalition would look to expand and alter the Initiative if it wins government.
He says it’s not reasonable to expect farmers to lock up areas of land for carbon sequestration for 100 years in order to earn credits.
“Our view is we will work to make a 25-year approach [where carbon must be locked up for only 25 years in order to earn credits].
“It’s a view which is almost universal across the sector that a quarter of a century, which is still a long time, is realistic, it allows people to long-term investments, but it’s not binding beyond the lifetime of one particular farm.”
