How the Coalition changed the rules to create dodgy carbon credits

When human-induced regeneration (HIR) first became part of the process of producing carbon credits, the Coalition wasn’t in power: it was the Gillard government in 2011 that created the framework for producing carbon credits from revegetation that drew down and stored carbon in trees.

That was via the Carbon Credits (Carbon Farming Initiative) Act 2011, which established the carbon farming initiative (CFI). The act required carbon storage methods to comply with eight integrity standards, including that they be “supported by relevant scientific results published in peer-reviewed literature”, account for “significant cyclical variations that are likely to occur in the amount of carbon sequestered in the relevant carbon pool”, and the calculations about the amount of carbon sequestered should be “conservative”.