Regulation needed for offset schemes

Southern Courier
Tuesday 17/4/2007 Page: 15

The rapidly-sprouting carbon offset industry needs greater regulatory control, climate-change activists and environmental scientists have warned. An increasingly popular concept, carbon offsetting allows the environmentally conscious consumer to pay extra to reduce the destructive capacity of their personal ecological footprint, but there are concerns that loose regulatory provisions endanger the efficacy of such schemes.

Dr Mark Diesendorf, senior lecturer at the Institute of Environmental Studies at the University of New South Wales recently told the Courier: "At present there appears to be no regulatory structure for offsets at all and no real information to guide consumers. There is a desperate need for a serious accreditation scheme for offsets.

"While tree plantations are better than nothing, they are not as secure as, say, purchasing wind energy, as trees can burn down and also once trees are fully grown they cease to absorb carbon dioxide:' The local activist group Climate Action Coogee shares Dr Diesendorf's concerns. "There are some offsetting companies that are not ecologically sustainable and some overseas companies that are causing problems for local communities," said a spokesperson for the group.

"In the long run businesses will have to invest in permanent renewable-energy strategies in order for Australia to make the greenhouse-gas emission reductions that it has to make. We think it is important that regulatory reform kick-starts this process along." Other commentators have warned that throwing money at carbon offsetting may also instil an attitude of environmental recklessness and give corporations the ultimate excuse not to reform their day-to-day environmentally damaging operations.

"Carbon offsetting is a good way to get people thinking about the problems associated with pollution but offsetting is not a solution to climate change," the spokesperson said.

A spokesperson for the Federal Opposition spokesman on Climate Change, Arts, Heritage and the Environment, Peter Garrett, said: "The issue of carbon offsetting will be considered as the Labor Party continues its policy development process in the lead-up to the next election"