Australian Conservation Foundation says it is not backing away from carbon credit criticisms

The Australian Conservation Foundation says Angus Taylor’s claim that it is backing away from criticisms about the country’s carbon credits scheme is untrue.

Angus Taylor says many of the allegations made about the nation’s carbon credits scheme have been found not to be true. Picture: Gary Ramage

The Australian Conservation Foundation says Energy Minister Angus Taylor’s claim that the nation’s largest environmental organisation was backing away from criticisms made by a former senior government advisor about the country’s carbon credits scheme is untrue.

In a speech to the Carbon Market Institute on Friday, Mr Taylor said the ACF had sought to distance itself from Andrew Macintosh, the former chairman of the government’s Emissions Reduction Assurance Committee, who last week described the carbon credit scheme as a rort.

“Many of (the market’s) participants are feeling aggrieved by accusations which do not appear to be substantiated by the academic papers,” Mr Taylor said.

“It is telling that groups like the ACF have backed away from this latest round of attacks on the ERF and are no longer promoting the claims that have been refuted by the regulator.”

But the ACF’s chief executive, Kelly O’Shanassy, on Friday said the organisation reaffirmed “its concerns about significant flaws in Australia’s carbon offset scheme”.

“We share Professor Andrew Macintosh’s concerns,” she said.

“Any speech given by the Energy Minister that claims otherwise is incorrect.

“Our own investigation are consistent with Professor Macintosh’s revelations about the scheme’s deep flaws … We found one in five carbon credits issued by the federal government’s $4.5bn Emission Reduction Fund do not represent real abatement.”

Ms O’Shanassy said an independent review into the scheme should be undertaken.

Professor Macintosh told the ABC’s 7.30 program last Thursday that the nation’s carbon market had “degenerated to become a rort”. “Payments are being made to people to not chop down forests that were never going to be chopped down, to grow forests that are already there, to grow forests in places that will never sustain permanent forests,” he said.

But Mr Taylor on Friday said many of those allegations – now being investigated by the ERAC and the regulator – had already been considered and “were not supported by evidence”.

The Clean Energy Regulator has said it stands by the Emissions Reduction Fund, describing it as a “a robust offsets scheme with a high degree of integrity”, and describing complaints about several of its carbon methods as unfounded.

Labor has, however, said it would launch a separate review if elected this year. “I want confidence in the system and I want a short review to ensure confidence. These are complex matters – the human-induced regeneration scheme and the landfill gas carbon abatement methods, they’re all complicated matters,” Labor energy spokesman Chris Bowen said.