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States and local governments should be encouraged to put aside any revenues from sale of any carbon credits they receive, as a result of any regulatory frameworks they adopt that deliver such emissions reductions, into trust funds for making long term stewardship payments to any landholders subject to that regulatory framework who adopt and implement management plans that include biodiversity conservation as well as emissions reductions. This is to help landholders meet the costs of implementing those plans. Those trust funds would be open to take additional contributions from any sources—government budgets, product levies, philanthropists or other private sources. Purchasing of ‘quality’ REDD foreign credits Australia should open its existing ERF—or ETS should it be reintroduced—to the purchase of quality REDD foreign credits. This can—and should—be done immediately. The idea of ‘quality’ REDD foreign credits is to ensure the focus is on proposals that reduce emissions by protecting intact forests and rewetting drained peat—inevitably identifying our neighbours, Indonesia and PNG, as a priorities. Indonesia desperately and urgently needs large-scale help to contain its peat fire problems while PNG landholders are probably up for buying out the entire logging industry if money distribution can be sorted out—and, here again, a trust fund could be key. TheAustraliangovernmentshouldstartapproachingdeveloping countries that are either already ‘REDD-ready’, or could become so readily quickly, witha viewtonegotiating bilateral arrangements to allow Australia to ‘recognise’ agencies issuing and/or entities selling credits in the other country. This is the other half of the process for identifying ‘quality’ credits —being confident that emissions reductions are really being made and maintained by the relevant landholder and jurisdiction. ALISTAIR GRAHAM AND PEG PUTT Burning wood for electricity is worse than using coal, oil or gas Burning native forest biomass should be removed from Renewable Energy Target eligibility It is to be much regretted that the Abbott government overturned the policy and practice of previous governments of all persuasions by adding native forest burning to the list of RET eligible energy sources. This was despite the Australian government’s March 2014 explanation of their then policy on excluding native forest bioenergy from the RET in their published response to the Climate Change Authority’s Renewable Energy Target Review: “Wood waste from native forests was removed from the RET as an eligible renewable energy source in 2011. This amendment was made to ensure the RET did not provide an incentive for the burning of native forest wood for bio-energy, which could lead to unintended consequences for biodiversity and the destruction of large intact carbon stores.” This rationale remains valid. Additionally, per unit of energy generated, emissions from burning wood are generally higher than those from burning coal let alone oil or gas. Just to be clear —burning wood for electricity is more polluting than burning coal, oil or gas. That wood is not a fossil fuel does not make it ‘good’. Burning wood derived from native forest logging does not belong in the wind and solar ‘renewables’ basket—it belongs in the ‘carbon emissions’ basket along with fossil fuels. Only dodgy emissions accounting rules can make it appear otherwise. Burning wood from a plantations can be regarded as ‘carbon neutral’ because today’s emissions can be offset against past sequestration in growing the crop for a net gain to the atmosphere—just like any other agricultural crop. Burning wood from native forests, however, is ‘carbonnegative’ because it involves destroying an existing carbon store and then having to wait decades, centuries or forever before ‘neutrality’ can be achieved. This time factor is crucial —if sequestration comes before emissions, there is a net benefit to the atmosphere, if emissions come before sequestration, the atmosphere suffers. Primary forest, Tasmania, Australia Photo: Kip Nunn Primary forest subject to clearcut logging, Tasmania 1Tasmanian Government, 2015, Tasmanian Greenhouse Gas Accounts: State Greenhouse Gas Inventory 2012-13 www.dpac.tas.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/265207/Tasmanian_Greenhouse_Gas_Accounts_Final_Report_2012-13.pdf 5