Native forests are not offsets, stop the carbon credit con

Dear Premier Minns, Minister Sharpe and Minister Moriarty,

Over 1500 people have made submissions against the NSW Government’s proposal to generate Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCUs) from native forests using the "Improved Native Forest Management" (INFM) method.

We cannot avoid climate breakdown or meet our net-zero targets if we contradict the fundamental principle of additionality. Forest carbon is already counted in Australia’s State and Federal greenhouse gas inventories. Creating carbon pollution credits from our precious public native forests adds no additional climate benefit. In truth, it privatises the carbon in our forests, creating a tradable product that delays action by big polluters and risks funnelling money into a discredited logging agency, the NSW Forestry Corporation.

The people of New South Wales are shocked at your delays to the establishment of the promised Great Koala National Park for the purposes of monetizing our forests to create carbon credits for coal and gas corporations. These actions display a distressing lack of integrity and the people of New South Wales deserve a government who will keep its promises to voters, rather than to its donors in the coal and gas industry.

This scheme will not protect forests. It will entrench logging, enable more climate pollution, and undermine public confidence in climate and environmental policy.

You can’t offset your way out of the climate crisis. Genuine climate action means an end to new coal and gas approvals, an economy-wide transition for communities, a mass rollout of publicly-owned renewables, an end to native forest logging, and regenerating native vegetation across the country. This scheme distracts from those genuine solutions.

ACCUs are a market mechanism. They are designed to allow industries to continue emitting greenhouse gases by purchasing offsets. They do not deliver true emissions reductions, and they do not offer a credible path to forest conservation.

Turning our native forests into carbon credits is not only deeply flawed, it is completely unnecessary. These forests already store carbon, support endangered wildlife, purify water, and provide landscape resilience in a changing climate. These benefits are public goods. They should not be privatised or traded for the benefit of climate polluters.

The proposed method relies on the false assumption that industrial logging will continue for more than 100 years unless financial incentives are introduced to avoid it. This baseline ignores the escalating threat of climate change, including bushfires, drought, and disease, and it fails to account for the growing public consensus that native forest logging must end now.

As I’m sure you are aware, Australia’s domestic emissions are rising and are still higher now than they were under Scott Morrison and Dominic Perrottet, in large part due to coal and gas approvals and continued logging in New South Wales.

Converting our precious native forests into carbon credits for the purposes of enabling more coal and gas pollution will only further damage the credibility of the NSW Labor Government.

Rejecting these changes will allow you to restore the credibility of your Government by immediately establishing the full 176,000 hectare Great Koala National Park, announcing the end of native forest logging in NSW and by refusing political cover to coal and gas corporations who donate to the NSW Labor Party.

I urge you to respect the will of the people, rather than the will of your political donors, and abandon the proposed INFM carbon credit method.

Sincerely,

Native forests are not offsets, stop the carbon credit con

Global warming and climate breakdown are inevitable unless on ground action is taken to reduce emissions and drawdown carbon through regeneration of native vegetation. But, Chris Minns wants to introduce a new pollution permit rather than act.

The NSW Minns Labor Government is proposing a new carbon credit method that would allow the creation of Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCUs) from native forests through the “Improved Native Forest Management” (INFM) method.

This scheme is a disaster. It will not protect forests. It will entrench logging, allow polluters to keep polluting, and undermine real climate action.

ACCUs are a form of offset: tradable permits that enable companies to continue emitting greenhouse gases. Instead of reducing pollution, they pay to maintain it. Forests used for ACCUs would still be at risk, and the financial beneficiaries may include Forestry Corporation, a discredited government logging agency that should be abolished rather than rewarded.

Forests are not carbon products. They are vital ecosystems that provide clean air and water, stabilise soil, house threatened species, and store carbon over the long term. NSW’s native forests are already included in national greenhouse gas accounts. Carbon credits offer no additional environmental benefit. In fact, they distract from the urgent action we need: ending native forest logging and legislating permanent protection.

This scheme assumes that logging will continue for the next 100 years, a baseline that ignores climate science, biodiversity threats, and public expectations. It fails to account for worsening impacts such as bushfires and drought, and sets the stage for rorting and greenwashing.

We are calling on the NSW Government to abandon this dangerous offset scheme and commit to real forest protection through strong legislation and policy reform.

Send an email to the Premier, Environment Minister and Agriculture Minister today. Every voice counts. Tell the Government to stop the carbon credit scheme and protect native forests permanently.

Native forests are not offsets, stop the carbon credit con

Native forests are not offsets, stop the carbon credit con

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