Oh cry me a river. How on earth could their projects be "undermined" by sharing data which could quickly an easily prove their integrity. #ACCU#climate#auspol
Also nice for GreenCollar to put this on "it's landholders" so if we call this out we're being mean to farmers, rather a multi-million dollar corporation.
The data carbon companies could freely release (the Regulator & all others are prohibited to release by law) are Carbon Estimation Areas (CEAs) - green shapes shown below
The project area shapefiles (around CEAs) are *already public* - downloadable here researchdata.edu.au/area-based-emi…
The project areas (public) are basically the property boundaries. So in terms of privacy, *we already know* who has carbon projects. This info is also freely available in the project register: cleanenergyregulator.gov.au/ERF/project-an…
The data that is *secret* are the particular areas - Carbon Estimation Areas or CEAs - within a property boundary/project area where carbon is being sequestered. Again, the green shapes in this figure (figure from this report law.anu.edu.au/sites/all/file…)
The Chubb review recommended the CFI Act be amended to enable the release of the CEA data. They cited the lack of transparency & access by third parties to CEA data as a core reason why ACCU integrity is in question. dcceew.gov.au/sites/default/…
Here is @CERegulator Chair David Parker @sarahinthesen8 yesterday that he believes it would be desirable to amend the CFI Act to enable the release of CEA data into the public domain.
This is not controversial.
The CFI Act secrecy provisions do not prevent carbon companies from releasing the CEA data themselves.
We could clear up #ACCU integrity issues once and for all with that data.
The government could also just amend the CFI Act as recommended.
It's not just the CEA data that's not in the public domain. And it's not just our team who is concerned. Others cannot speak out.
We know of at least 5 other reports related to the human-induced regeneration (HIR) method that either the Regulator or Dept has not made public.
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👉The root cause of this scandal is the Clean Energy Regulator, which has allowed HIR projects to include uncleared lands when the projects started in their credited areas
📝 There are multiple lines of evidence that show the HIR method should only be applied in locations...
...that have been previously cleared.
One is the the Explanatory Statement to the method () which says: “The Determination applies to projects in which land has been cleared of native vegetation and where regrowth has been suppressed for at least 10 years.”legislation.gov.au/F2013L00162/as…
The ANU-UNSW research team has analysed the recently released CEA (carbon estimation area) for HIR #carbon projects. The results are unsurprisingly bad. 🧵Full papers and interactive data linked below: 1/
HIR (human-induced regen of permanent even-aged native forest) carbon projects have generated ~30% of ACCUs issued under the #EmissionsReductionFund; 37 million ACCUs. They cover more than 31 million ha, ~ the size of Japan. The world’s largest offset type by project area. 2/
Following the Chubb review & the #SafeguardMechanism deal, CEA (carbon estimation area) data has been made public:
Our team's analyses have repeatedly been criticized as incomplete without CEA data. Now we've analysed it, and the results are clear. 3/ https://t.co/wx5hWg1yMQcleanenergyregulator.gov.au/ERF/project-an…
The Australian Government @DCCEEW last week quietly released draft National Environmental Standards (NES) for Matters of National Environmental Significance (MNES) as part of its #EPBCAct reform.
*2 weeks consultation*, due 22 May 2023
A🧵on key issues👇 consult.dcceew.gov.au/draft-nes-for-…
Note the overarching MNES standard is the first to be released, there are others in development that will be released (hopefully) soon, including for:
- Environmental Offsets
- Regional Planning
- First Nations Engagement and Participation
- Community Engagement
2/
First, what's the overall goal? #NaturePositive! (it's mentioned 19 times in the document)
What does this mean? Apparently - a "collective outcome" where the environment is "repaired, regenerated and protected", requiring action everyone, not just government.
On Tues, @DCCEEW say Chubb made recommendations on how the HIR method should be interpreted *but* didn't say the method had been incorrectly interpreted to date.
@sarahinthesen8 "Why would you have to clarify interpretation if it [HIR] hadn't been misinterpreted?"
It's no secret that conservation science (and journals, and the media) loves a good global map - and there's a lot of them. We found >150 global priority maps published since 2000 (and that's DEFINITELY an UNDERestimate)
So what? Maps can be super useful, and salient, and have helped (and continue to do so) raise awareness and $ for #conservation
But is there a risk we're overestimating their value?