Overview
The climate change function transferred to our department from the Department of the Environment and Energy on 1 February 2020.
The Carbon Credits (Carbon Farming Initiative) Act 2011 (the Act) enables the crediting of greenhouse gas abatement from emissions reduction activities across Australia. Greenhouse gas abatement is achieved either by reducing or avoiding emissions, or by removing carbon from the atmosphere and storing it.
The Carbon Credits (Carbon Farming Initiative) Amendment Rule (No. 3) 2017 (the draft Amendment Rule) details additional minor administrative procedures under the Act, primarily associated with a new methodology determination to credit the storage of carbon in savannas. These provisions include arrangements for project proponents wanting to transfer between savanna emissions avoidance and sequestration methodology determinations and a requirement that savanna fire management projects obtain the necessary fire permits under State and Territory bushfire legislation. The draft Amendment Rule also sets out information requirements related to permanence and provides specified values for the permanence period discount number and the risk of reversal buffer for savanna sequestration projects in accordance with the Act.
The draft Amendment Rule also clarifies that to end offsets reports for a soil carbon project, the project must have reached the end of the 25 year or 100 year permanence period for the project.
The draft Amendment Rule proposes to achieve these changes by amending the Carbon Credits (Carbon Farming Initiative) Rule 2015 (the Principal Rule).
The draft Amendment Rule and this explanatory document are being released by the Department of Environment and Energy to inform consideration of government policy. The draft Measurement of soil carbon sequestration in agricultural systems method is open for public consultation from 4 September 2017 to 2 October 2017 and stakeholders may wish to provide comment on the draft Amendment Rule as part of their submission on the draft method. The consultation on these documents and the related methodology determinations will inform whether the amendments will be adopted by the Government and made into law. The majority of the amendments were released for consultation in November 2016.
The second consultation on proposed Rule amendments to facilitate savanna projects will close on 27 November 2017.
Related
Carbon Credits (Carbon Farming Initiative) Amendment Rule (No. 3) 2017 - second exposure draft 122.5 KB (PDF document)
Carbon Credits (Carbon Farming Initiative) Amendment Rule (No. 3) 2017 - second exposure draft 93.8 KB (Office Word 2007 XML document)
Second Exposure Draft Carbon Credits (Carbon Farming Initiative) Rule 2015 - Explanatory statement 129.2 KB (PDF document)
Second Exposure Draft Carbon Credits (Carbon Farming Initiative) Rule 2015 - Explanatory statement 63.7 KB (Office Word 2007 XML document)
