HSI

While the overall CPRS deal reached between the Government and Liberal Party gives unwelcome concessions to industrial polluters at environmental cost, Humane Society International (HSI) is pleased that there are some important new gains for green carbon and biodiversity.

HSI has been calling for landholders that forego the right to clear native vegetation to receive credits under the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme and recommended it as a measure to the Liberal Party. We congratulate Malcolm Turnbull, Greg Hunt, Ian MacFarlane and Penny Wong for agreeing this important amendment, which will help conserve both carbon and biodiversity on public and private land.

HSI is further pleased to see that credits that will be available to landholders for regrowing native forests on deforested land.

Also very welcome is a new $40m dollar Green Carbon Fund to build the resilience of natural ecosystems under threat from climate change and to fund environmental stewardship initiatives where there are carbon and biodiversity co-benefits.

"The country is facing both a climate and biodiversity crisis and they exacerbate each other. HSI congratulates the Government and Liberal Party for their attention to green carbon and biodiversity in the CPRS negotiations," said Nicola Beynon, HSI Senior Program Manager.

While HSI has strongly advocated the agricultural sector's voluntary participation in the CPRS to receive credits for avoided deforestation, we continue to see this as an interim step prior to full inclusion in the Scheme at a later date. We do not support an indefinite exemption for the agricultural sector in having to account for its very substantial emissions.

HSI believes the Government should revise its 2020 emission reduction target to at least 40% to lessen the risks of further ecosystem collapse in Australia, and encourage other developed countries to do likewise.