Greens strike a deal to support carbon credits for forest protection

The Greens have split over whether to allow state governments to earn carbon credits for protecting public forests, with most of its senators defying calls from former leaders Bob Brown and Christine Milne to side with the Nationals and block the scheme. Three Greens senators said they would cross the floor to support the National Party’s disallowance motion in a vote on Thursday afternoon, but the government is expected to have the numbers with at least one Liberal senator crossing the floor the other way. A koala in the Great Koala National Park. Martin SmithIf the government prevails, it would pave the way for the NSW government to earn carbon credits from the creation of the Great Koala National Park in northern NSW as part of a broader commitment to reduce logging in the state. NSW Environment Minister Penny Sharpe and Treasurer Daniel Mookhey wrote to Bowen and Wilson on Monday committing that the ACCUs would be prioritised for NSW manufacturers and not be sold to the fossil fuel industry, and that any revenue from the ACCUs would be spent on enhancing management of the Great Koala National Park. The letter, seen , also extended that commitment to any hypothetical future project using the INFM. Sharpe has previously said the carbon credits would make it “easier” to consider a proposal for an even bigger national park proposed for the NSW-Victoria border. A statement from Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen and Assistant Climate Change Minister Josh Wilson on Thursday confirmed the “sensible adjustments” the government had made to secure support for the carbon credit method in the Senate. This included enabling the Clean Energy Regulator to give effect to the Minns government’s promise not to sell the credits to fossil fuel projects, increasing the amount of forest that must be protected against established harvesting baselines before credits are issued, and clarifying the definition of plantation versus native forest in the method. The Greens senators crossing the floor are Jordon Steele-John from Western Australia and Nick McKim and Vanessa Bleyer from Tasmania. But the government is expected to have support from a Liberal senator and key independents. Alex Ellinghausen The NSW Greens had urged their federal colleagues to allow the method to stand because it could be a pathway to end native forest logging, and they fear the alternative with a timber-industry ACCU method that would allow logging to continue. The WA Greens were lobbying the opposite position.