The Australian Conservation Foundation has rejected a claim by Angus Taylor that it has backed away from criticising Australia’s carbon credit system.
The environment group called for an independent review to address “significant flaws” in the scheme.
Taylor, the energy and emissions reduction minister, suggested in a speech on Friday that the ACF had distanced itself from Prof Andrew Macintosh, a former advisor to the Coalition government on carbon credit integrity who has described the system as “largely a sham” that wasted funding and was not reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Macintosh, an Australian National University law professor and former head of the government’s emissions reduction assurance committee, said all the major methods approved by the government to create carbon credits had “serious integrity issues”.
He estimated 75% of carbon credits issued by the Clean Energy Regulator, a government agency, may not represent real or new cuts in emissions as required. His critique, outlined in four academic papers, challenges the credibility of the Coalition’s $4.5bn “direct action” emissions reduction fund, through which the government buys carbon credits from landholders and businesses.
The allegations have been dismissed by the regulator and industry body the Carbon Market Institute, which said on Friday it had found “key issues” with Macintosh’s analysis.-
Taylor told a Carbon Market Institute conference he believed the professor’s claims were “completely unfounded”.
“It is telling that groups like the ACF have backed away from this latest round of attacks on the [emissions reduction fund] and are no longer promoting the claims that have been refuted by the regulator and [committee],” Taylor said.
The ACF’s chief executive, Kelly O’Shanassy, rejected Taylor’s characterisation. She said the group believed there were “significant flaws” in the carbon offsets scheme.
“We share Prof Andrew Macintosh’s concerns. Any speech given by the energy minister that claims otherwise is incorrect,” she said.
O’Shanassy said a report last year by the ACF and the Australia Institute that found many “avoided deforestation” projects – under which landholders get carbon credits for not removing vegetation from their land – were essentially “junk” was consistent with Macintosh’s research.
“Our investigation revealed people and companies getting credits for not clearing forests that were never going to be cleared and for projects that were financially viable and would have gone ahead anyway,” she said.
“We have raised our concerns with the Clean Energy Regulator but have been ignored and criticised, even when we have shared our methodology with the regulator beforehand. It’s time for an independent review of Australia’s carbon credit scheme.”
John Connor, the chief executive of the Carbon Market Institute, has said many carbon market participants - including a “vast network of farmers, traditional owners, service providers, investors, auditors, conservationists and public servants” who had spent the past decade striving for faster emissions reductions - felt aggrieved by Macintosh’s accusations.
Taylor applauded Connor’s stance. He suggested criticisms of the carbon credit system were a “political attack” and said industries had “a responsibility to stand up – not for themselves, but for the facts”. The minister said the regulator and emissions reduction assurance committee had looked into earlier claims about carbon credits lacking integrity and found they were “not supported by evidence”.
“Of course, I expect the regulator and [the committee] to look into these new claims and I welcome the fact they have already commenced that important work,” Taylor said. “I look forward to the outcome of their investigations, which will be released publicly once complete.”
Labor’s climate change and energy spokesman, Chris Bowen, has said carbon credits were “very important”, would be “increasingly important” under an ALP government and promised a “short and sharp” review of the carbon credit scheme if it wins the upcoming election.
Macintosh’s allegations have made waves due to his central role in administering the carbon credit scheme. He has been appointed to several senior roles by the Coalition, including to serve as a royal commissioner examining Australia’s natural disaster response after the 2019-20 bushfires.
He told Guardian Australia he attempted to address the problems with carbon credits while on the integrity committee but had limited success, and regretted he had not taken a stronger stance. He said he continued to try to persuade the regulator and other officials of the need to act before deciding to go public.
Macintosh has called on the regulator to release data not currently in the public domain that it relied on to say the system was working, and said there should be an independent inquiry into the failures of the system with the power to compel people to give evidence.
