This picture taken on Dec 5, 2020 shows a general view of a desert outside Woomera Village, some 488km north-west of South Australia's capital city of Adelaide. SYDNEY: Australia's carbon credit scheme was undermined by damning new research on Wednesday , which found a world-leading reforestation project had been an underperforming"catastrophe".
Despite this, Australia had used these projects to bank millions of tonnes in questionable carbon credits, scientists said, which are used to supposedly offset polluting industries. "They should be showing really strong increases in tree cover," said Macintosh, a former chair of the government body responsible for tracking Australia's carbon offsets.Each ton of carbon sequestered by these forests is chalked up as a single carbon credit.
"What sort of faith do I have in the carbon credits scheme? It's very, very low. Our scheme is without a doubt amongst the least transparent in the world." Australian Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen said the assumptions underpinning the scheme remained"basically sound".