Yesterday’s opening day of the Carbon Farming Industry Forum in Northern NSW saw a lively debate of climate, carbon and nature policies, with both excitement and frustration with slow progress on key reforms and initiatives. The 2-day Forum comes at a critical time just after the federal election which resulted in a renewed mandate for the Albanese Government to re-focus on their climate change agenda.
CMI Chair, Dr Kerry Schott AO opened the Forum highlighting the need for accelerated action to address some of the frustrations in the blow-out in timeframes for new method development, especially the Integrated Farm and Land Management (IFLM) method, which is designed to combine methods to accelerate outcomes, and the full implementation of the Chubb Review recommendations.
Dr Schott conveyed the ‘irritation’ of the sector on the lengthy delays the sector is experiencing in moving forward on a number of fronts, preventing the accelerated growth of the carbon market to combat climate change.
Excitement and frustration shared in the opening address by CMI CEO John Connor, as he pointed out that, with the right levers, step change improvements in land management are possible.
“Changes that can deliver climate, nature and history repair at scale. Changes that can preserve and boost agricultural productivity and climate resilience,” said Connor.
“Carbon farming, sustainable agriculture, regeneration of country and the technologies to measure report and verify their climate and biodiversity results have taken massive strides forward. There is a growing catalogue of projects delivering these results and also a clear vector of success for Indigenous Australians in enabling greater access to country, management and ownership.”
“Frustration as we work up policies and their administration that can ensure investor and community confidence in the integrity of the crediting framework that must underpin the scale of growth necessary. Frustrations as reviews and delays on ACCU methods and FullCam modelling threaten business viability.”
“Frustration also at the false binaries besetting the conversation.”
“It’s not industrial decarbonisation or offset credits, the latter must complement not substitute the former.”
“It’s not emission reduction or carbon removal, it must be both as we head to more of the latter as we approach net zero,” said Connor.
Attendees heard from David Parker, Chair & CEO, Clean Energy Regulator, and Jenny Merkley, Executive Director, Climate Change and Sustainability, NSW Government, in a panel discussion on Optimising Policy Frameworks for Carbon and Nature Markets.
The NSW Government used the Forum to announce new funding of $10m for their Low Carbon Landscapes Grants. Grants are available to fund the initial stages of development for landscape-scale projects. The aim of the grants is to deliver additional benefits on top of increased carbon storage and emission reductions.
The Forum was engaged in a rich discussion on “right way dialogue” with Indigenous communities as partnership and ownership opportunities expand.
The importance of a continuing focus on best practice in integrity and stakeholder relations was a common theme in particular in the closing session with Dr Karen Hussey, Chair, Emission Reduction Assurance Committee, and Carl Binning, Executive General Manager, Clean Energy Regulator.
Other highlights included an early look at upcoming research showing that Australia can achieve both its climate and nature targets by 2050, while meeting growing domestic and export demand for agricultural production, but it will require integrated and optimised carbon and nature policy settings and a dynamic and agile farm sector.
The modelling work is undertaken by Climateworks and Deakin University to support the release in 2026 of an updated CMI Carbon Farming Industry Roadmap.
Day 2 of the Carbon Farming Industry Forum will start with an indigenous address building on the discussion from the town hall session on Indigenous Carbon & Biodiversity – Opportunities & ‘Right Way, Wrong Way’ Engagement.
