Over the weekend, Angus Taylor effectively handed over billions in profits born of the increased price of Australia’s carbon credits – money which his government actually had contractual rights to.
This week’s drama around the plunging price of Australian Carbon Credit Units, or ACCUs, and the glaring question of why a government would chose to handover profits it owned is, quite honestly, mystifying.
To give you a taste of the fund’s most popular “methods,” as they’re known, the first is called ‘human–induced regeneration’ and it involves putting a fence around a piece of land so it can’t be accessed.
These guys, the aggregators, drive around to farms and properties and recruit landholders to start ‘carbon farming.’ These aggregators manage the credits, bundling them together and making handsome returns.
“Commercially it doesn’t make sense,” Director of the Victoria Energy Policy Centre, Bruce Mountain, told pv magazine Australia.
It pointed out the federal government has been fast tracking new “methods” or project types which can access the scheme.
The Emissions Reduction Fund “can’t be all things to all people,” it added.
Long term, it isn’t clear what effect flooding the market with credits could have.
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