A chance to fix the native forest carbon method [AU]Friday 21 Aug 2026
The disallowance motion, lodged by NSW Nationals Senator Ross Cadell, had been listed for debate. It now sits on the Tuesday of the September sitting week. Forestry Australia President Dr Michelle Freeman said the time should go into the technical work. “The deferral is welcome. Four weeks is enough to publish the modelling and correct the accounting, and that is what we are asking for,” Dr Freeman said. “Senators should be voting on a method that has been tested in the open.” The INFM Method allows state governments to earn Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCUs) by ending timber harvesting in state forests. New South Wales intends to register the area encompassing the Great Koala National Park on the mid North Coast, as the first project. A briefing note published by Forestry Australia on 31 July tested the method’s modelling and accounting framework and found it structurally biased towards over-crediting. That means the method may issue more carbon credits than the actual climate outcome can justify. “The method uses inappropriate modelling approaches and accounting timeframes to characterise harvesting impacts and forest regrowth post-harvest,” Dr Freeman said. “These choices mean the climate benefit claimed by the INFM method could be overstated by 40 to 100 per cent. For a method that might generate ACCUs worth hundreds of millions of dollars this is a material issue.” Meanwhile, a second briefing note, published last week, identified an additional problem. Credits are calculated across the whole project area, while the obligation to keep that carbon standing for 100 years applies only inside mapped carbon protection areas. Harvesting can therefore be reduced outside protection areas during the crediting years, earn credits, and return to earlier levels once the crediting stops. Requests for the underlying modelling have gone unanswered since consultation opened more than a year ago. “Forestry Australia raised our concerns more than a year ago and asked for the data and modelling that would allay them. We have asked to be proven wrong, yet still nothing has been released. Further, material changes were made after public consultation closed without the chance for independent scrutiny. ” Dr Freeman said. “The lack of transparency around the development of this method is deeply concerning. It does not meet expectations for a high integrity ACCU scheme method”. Forestry Australia also shares the concerns widely communicated by other environmental and industry stakeholders that the method does not sufficiently deal with additionality and leakage. Forestry Australia has asked for corrections to the INFM Method before any project is registered or any credit issued. Some of these requests include:
More >> Source: Forestry Australia | ||
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