World leaders in bovine poo
Check out these two statements on measuring carbon in forests. The first is from a recent draft Federal Government policy paper saying that we can’t measure forest carbon properly yet, so we’ll just ignore it in the overall carbon tally for Australia. The second is from a Federal Government media release saying that Australia is so far advanced in measuring forest carbon that we’ll help the rest of the world.
This makes you want to take them by the neck and shake them violently!
“Reporting methodologies are not yet sufficiently developed for wide-scale measurement of agriculture and land use, land use change and forestry emissions at the facility and corporate levels. … until development of improved methodologies, the legislative instrument for methodologies will specify that emissions from … forestry will be considered zero for the purposes of thresholds and reporting under the Act. Following development of improved methodologies for estimating emissions in these areas, further consideration will be given to reporting and threshold issues”.
National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting System Regulations Policy Paper – public comments closed in late February ‘08.
“Senator Penny Wong has announced a new partnership with the Clinton Climate Initiative to develop a global carbon monitoring system that can assist in recognising sustainable forest management and reforestation within global carbon markets … While Australia is a trail-blazer in modern forest carbon measurement systems, a global application of this kind requires an international partnership to harness world wide capabilities”.