The Coalition has refused immediate support for the government’s carbon farming bill because it fears farmland will be consumed by forests, but the timber industry says Tony Abbott’s Direct Action plan would require up to 600,000 hectares of cleared agricultural land to be converted to plantations.
Yesterday the Coalition’s climate spokesman, Greg Hunt, said the government’s ”carbon farming” bill had ”great potential” and that he approached it ”with a constructive heart” but could not vote on it until he had seen the regulatory detail.
But the Nationals leader, Warren Truss, said the bill established ”just another subsidised tree-planting scheme”, which would be ”managed investment schemes on steroids” - a reference to a 2008 private forestry bill that the Nationals opposed in a split with their Liberal coalition colleagues.
The government estimates it will achieve between 1 million and 2 million tonnes of greenhouse gas abatement a year by 2020 through forests planted because of the incentives set up through the carbon farming bill.
The Coalition’s direct action plan factors in about 10 times that amount, estimating between 12 and 15 million tonnes of abatement a year by 2020 would be achieved through ”long rotation plantations” established after it offers landholders $15 for every tonne of carbon.
Its estimate is based on calculations from the National Association of Forest Industries. That organisation’s chief executive, Allan Hansard, told the Herald the Coalition plan would require between 300,000 and 600,000 hectares of already cleared agricultural land to be planted with trees by the end of the decade.
Calculations by the Department of Climate Change suggest the land area needed to achieve the Coalition’s goal could be 10 times that estimate.
The government’s bill would also reward farmers for storing carbon in the soil - an activity the Coalition says it wants to rely on for 60 per cent of its greenhouse abatement.
The Greens Senator, Christine Milne, said it would be ”hypocritical in the extreme for the Coalition to vote against the carbon farming bill when they claim to have so much faith in the soil carbon farming that it would encourage”.
The independents, Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott, are expected to support the government’s bill, but the Greens are also demanding amendments to restrict the extent to which industry will be able to buy abatement from carbon farming to meet some of its obligations under the new carbon tax.
