Credits are treated as a like-for-like swap for emissions, but carbon stored in nature is different to burning millennia-old fossil fuels.
The more reliance is placed on them, the more they look like a house of cards.
In Australia, they are known as Australian Carbon Credit Units.
With global heating moving into territory, the world needs to retain and regenerate all the forests it can, and create new ones.
A UN Environment Programme report earlier this month that found global heating will reach 1.8C in a best-case scenario is just the latest example.
5 sentences from our version of the report,
chosen to cover it. Nothing here is written; every line is in the article below.
How
Summarized version
Under the climate policy applied to big industrial facilities responsible for about a third of national pollution there is no requirement that businesses make direct emissions cuts. The flood of carbon offsets being created means the price of credits is low.
Headline check
The one thing this headline claims did not turn up in the report.
“Adam Morton” is named in the headline. We could not find it in the report.
Figures, names and quoted words in the headline, looked for in the report itself — not in the summary above. Names are matched as they are spelled, so a report that says “New South Wales” where the headline says “NSW” is queried here when it should not be. How this is checked
The article, shortened and in plain language
Credits are treated as a like-for-like swap for emissions, but carbon stored in nature is different to burning millennia-old fossil fuels.
T he fight within the Greens that led senators to cross the floor last week over koala protection in a national park may have put a spotlight on a bigger issue – one at the heart of much of Australia’s promise to act on the climate change. The more reliance is placed on them, the more they look like a house of cards.
Offsets can be a mind-deadening subject, but they matter. In Australia, they are known as Australian Carbon Credit Units. Each credit is said to represent one tonne of greenhouse gas that isn’t in the atmosphere and otherwise would have been.
With global heating moving into territory, the world needs to retain and regenerate all the forests it can, and create new ones.
Australian carbon credits are treated as a like-for-like alternative for emissions cuts by fossil fuel producers, factories and other big polluting sites. Under the climate policy applied to big industrial facilities responsible for about a third of national pollution there is no requirement that businesses make direct emissions cuts.
Geologically stored carbon that is dug up and used as coal, gas or oil has been underground for millennia.
The forest and peat fires burning on the Indonesian islands of Borneo and Sumatra are a case in point.
A UN Environment Programme report earlier this month that found global heating will reach 1.8C in a best-case scenario is just the latest example.
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