‘Widespread noncompliance and poor performance’ in Australia’s massive carbon removal projects, say researchers

Another case of false pretences from the murky world of climate ‘greenwashing’. Regenerating (sic) native forests across ‘an area significantly larger than Japan’ in places that have never had forests, and are unsuitable for forest regeneration (say the researchers), is a highly lucrative route to creating millions of carbon credits in Australia.
– – –
One of the largest types of carbon offset projects the Australian government is using to meet climate change targets and reduce carbon in the atmosphere is failing to do so, new research has shown.

The findings are published in The Rangeland Journal, says the Australian National University (via Phys.org).

The projects aim to regenerate native forests across large parts of Australia, but analysis shows most of the selected areas have never had forests, are unsuitable for forest regeneration and are not producing the increase in tree canopy cover that projects are being credited for.

Australian human-induced forest regeneration (HIR) projects are the largest pure carbon removal nature-based offset type in the world. They are supposed to be regenerating permanent, even-aged native forests across millions of hectares of Australia’s dry outback, primarily by reducing grazing pressure from livestock and feral animals.

The projects cover 42 million hectares—an area significantly larger than Japan—and, to date, they have received more than 45 million Australian carbon credit units (ACCUs) (30% of all ACCUs issued under the Australian carbon offset scheme), worth approximately $1 billion.

New research conducted by 10 leading researchers from The Australian National University (ANU), University of New South Wales (UNSW) and Haizea Analytics has found extreme levels of non-compliance with key regulatory requirements in 116 of these human-induced regeneration (HIR) projects, and that the projects have had little impact on tree cover and carbon sequestration.
. . .
Dr. Megan Evans from UNSW Canberra, stated that the findings highlight a significant missed opportunity to restore previously cleared biodiversity-rich woodlands and forests via legitimate carbon offset projects.

“A decade ago, there was great hope that carbon markets could cost-effectively restore biodiversity where it has been destroyed by clearing, largely in Australia’s agricultural zones.

“Now, we’re seeing that 95% of the places being paid to restore forests occur in largely remote inland areas that have never actually been cleared of forests. Our new findings point to such huge failures that it’s almost beyond belief. Unfortunately, we expect that government and industry will simply respond by saying we’ve got it wrong, we’ve used the wrong data, and continue to deny there is a problem.”

Full article here.