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Greenfleet welcomes EU carbon link

Australian carbon offset organisation Greenfleet welcomed the announcement to remove the floor price and link Australia’s emissions trading scheme (ETS) with the European Union (EU) ETS. Source: Timberbiz

Greenfleet is a not-for-profit organisation set-up to reduce the environmental impact of travel, business and lifestyle choices by adopting low-carbon alternatives and biosequestration.

The organization is a Recognised Offsets Entity under the Carbon Credits (Carbon Farming) Initiative Act 2011 and is to open a registry account and undertake steps to deliver CFI carbon forest projects, with the ultimate goal of creating Australian Carbon Credit Units under the CFI.

“It brings greater simplicity to the scheme; and linking to the more established market means Australia will benefit from the EU experience and Australian carbon project developers can tap into a larger market,” said Greenfleet CEO, Sara Gipton.

“We are confident that investment in Australian carbon forests that offer additional biodiversity benefits will continue to rise as liable parties build their carbon management portfolios,” said Ms Gipton.

“Forward investment in carbon forests presents liable parties with long term certainty on both price and delivery of carbon,” she said.

“In an international carbon market, the price of credits will rise and fall, as it does for any market commodity. Sensible investors will manage this risk by taking a portfolio approach.

“The costs associated with planting and managing carbon forests are largely predictable, and therefore offer investors pricing and supply certainty for the future.

“Biodiverse carbon forests help build natural landscape resilience to the impacts of climate change, with additional biodiversity and habitat benefits, as well as capturing carbon. All in all, Australian biodiverse carbon forest offsets work harder to help us achieve our ultimate goal – climate change mitigation.

“We are confident Australia’s carbon compliance market will invest in biodiverse native forests as part of their carbon risk strategies, due to the predictability in price, long term carbon delivery and environmental co-benefits,” she said.