Look for hidden trade-offs, political contributions and what businesses are not telling you.
Academic rigor, journalistic flair
Articles on Carbon credits
Displaying all articles
Labor must resist the false promise of carbon offsets in its safeguard mechanism. The only thing that matters is actually cutting emissions
Culling water buffalo is expensive. What if land managers could earn carbon credits for controlling the numbers of these methane-belching animals?
Kenya, Malawi, Gabon, Nigeria and Togo are already interested in scaling carbon credit production.
For years, the ‘safeguard mechanism’ has been widely criticised for lacking teeth. Labor’s new reform doesn’t change that much.
More must be done to ensure the Albanese government truly delivers the emissions reductions it has promised.
Carbon offsetting is often met with scepticism, but a new report suggests that if correctly designed it can be an important part of the net zero transition.
Offsetting carbon emissions sounds great. In practice, it’s often used to maintain the high-emissions status quo.
The safeguard mechanism is supposed to stop Australia’s largest polluters from emitting over a certain threshold. It’s been widely criticised for lacking teeth, and is finally under review.
The landfill industry’s decision to speak out about the integrity of carbon credits provides an opportunity to put the system back on the rails.
Biodiversity market schemes can help – but they are not a silver bullet, and can be gamed if poorly designed.
Savanna grasslands are burnt early in the dry season to reduce the chance of large fires later. But it’s making air pollution worse.
Our new analysis suggests the vast majority of carbon credits granted for regrowing native forests either has not occurred, or would have occurred anyway.
Labor has promised a 43% cut in Australia’s emissions by 2030 and a high-integrity carbon credit market is vital to reaching this goal.
Australia needs an honest reckoning with the fossil fuel industry’s decades-long hold over Australian politics. Without that, we cannot shift to a principled stand against ceaseless expansion.
New Zealand has announced a more ambitious pledge to cut emissions, but the commitment relies on buying credits from offshore. There is no system for doing this yet, or for ensuring genuine cuts.
Prominent academics, including a former IPCC chair, round on governments worldwide for using the concept of net zero emissions to ‘greenwash’ their lack of commitment to solving global warming.
I spoke to dozens of people in the industry, to find out what they do – and don’t – believe.
Blue carbon stored in coastal ecosystems is important, but it’s a poor fig leaf for Australia’s abysmal record on emissions.
Under the current rules, the federal government takes the most responsibility for buying carbon credits. A blockchain-driven market would be faster, smarter, and much more open.
Top contributors
-
Professor and Director of Research, ANU Law School, Australian National University
-
Professor, Australian National University
-
Lecturer, Australian National University
-
Senior Lecturer and ARC DECRA Fellow, UNSW Sydney
-
Professor of Pyrogeography and Fire Science, University of Tasmania
-
Adjunct Professor, Murdoch University
-
Professor, Charles Darwin University
-
Professor, Menzies Institute for Medical Research, University of Tasmania
-
Associate Professor in Earth System Science, University of Exeter
-
Lecturer in Sustainability Governance and Leadership, The University of Melbourne
-
Associate Professor, Queensland University of Technology
-
Professor of Physical Climate Change; Director of the Priestley International Centre for Climate, University of Leeds
-
Professor in Applied Mathematics, Massey University
-
Lecturer in Political Theory and Public Policy, UCL
-
Professor of Sustainable Science, Technology and Commerce and Business Economics, University of Michigan
