![Pressure is mounting for landholders to be more active in tackling Australia's greenhouse gas emissions problem. File photo. Pressure is mounting for landholders to be more active in tackling Australia's greenhouse gas emissions problem. File photo.](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/32XghFRykTWK8psrWNhdBMC/0cd31521-69bd-4058-a943-0de62bb197b6.jpg/r0_42_1021_617_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
Queensland and NSW are running well ahead of the pack when it comes to providing initiatives to foster and support carbon farming projects, according to the latest annual scorecard on the carbon sector's progress.
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For the third consecutive year the report by the Carbon Market Institute and financial services group, KPMG, found Queensland remained the most farming-friendly state jurisdiction, with a score of 83 per cent.
The report monitors the level and nature of support for carbon farming and recognition of the value of carbon projects in delivering social, environmental, Indigenous and economic co-benefits for regional communities.
NSW scored 79pc, ahead of Western Australia (59pc), South Australia (58pc), Victoria (48pc), Tasmania (39pc) and Northern Territory (35pc).
WA made the most progress since last year's scorecard thanks to its Carbon and Land Restoration Funding Program and the Carbon Farmers Voucher Program.
However, pressure is mounting for landholders to be more active in tackling Australia's greenhouse gas emissions problem, including modifying land management habits - particularly vegetation clearing.
Big target to meet
Research by not-for-profit think-tank, Climateworks Centre suggests Australia may need to boost its annual rate of land based carbon sequestration eight-fold by 2050 to achieve net zero carbon emissions and help keep global temperatures from rising 1.5 degrees.
Carbon farming and sustainable climate-smart agriculture could be expected to play a critical role in achieving sequestration at this scale, while also creating significant land productivity and seasonal resilience benefits.
Carbon Market Institute chief executive officer, John Connor, said Australia had generally seen considerable progress from state and federal governments fostering reform and growth incentives in the past year.
Alongside the Australian Government's review and reform of the Australian Carbon Credit Unit framework, most states and territories made incremental improvements to the transparency, integrity and governance of carbon sequestration projects.
However, the report also identified a need for clearer articulation of the value of carbon farming and carbon markets to the economy.
Both also needed to be better aligned if Australia was to achieve ambitious national decarbonisation and "nature positive" goals.
The scorecard's release coincided with some stern advice from former federal Treasury boss and now Australian Climate and Biodiversity Foundation chairman, Ken Henry.
![Australian Climate and Biodiversity Foundation chairman, Ken Henry. File photo. Australian Climate and Biodiversity Foundation chairman, Ken Henry. File photo.](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/32XghFRykTWK8psrWNhdBMC/23b0ba19-c857-453a-baf4-3148ea43e53d.jpg/r0_74_4044_2508_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
"It's well past time we accepted that securing economic and social development rests upon the rebuilding of natural capital, not its plunder," Dr Henry said.
He said the "nature and climate crisis" could only be tackled with a strong commitment to a "nature positive" approach.
However, "only bits" of a comprehensive policy framework to achieve net zero by 2050 were currently in place.
"Given where we are now, the best we can hope for is that Australia's net zero policy frameworks will evolve into a scheme that facilitates the economy-wide trading of ACCUs," Dr Henry told the Carbon Farming Industry Forum in North Queensland.
He noted five of the six industry sectors for which the federal government was developing net zero emissions plans were still likely to remain net emitters.
"If that's the case, then it follows, that the sixth sector - which is agriculture and land, including forestry - must be a carbon sink," he said.
"And I think it is going to have to be a very large carbon sink."
Land would be the principal source of ACCUs, to be purchased by those operating in the other five pollution emitting sectors, and possibly by overseas-based entities, too.
Dr Henry stressed the importance of legislators and regulators ensuring the ACCU framework operated with high integrity, standards, metrics, and methods, and with accurate emissions baselining.
It was also important that market instruments such as the ACCU scheme "should be designed to change human behaviour".
It's important to give humans, especially landholders, a reason to stop adding carbon into the atmosphere, and to stop destroying our limited stores of natural capital
- Ken Henry, Australian Climate and Biodiversity Foundation.
This included prompting landholders to avoid land clearing which increased greenhouse gas emissions and reduced biodiversity.
"It is, of course, essential we remove carbon from the atmosphere and repair degraded landscapes, but it's equally important to give humans, especially landholders, a reason to stop adding carbon into the atmosphere, and to stop destroying our limited stores of natural capital," he said.
Carbon Farming Institute's Mr Connor said a key challenge for the year ahead identified in the report was ensuring new, high integrity methods were finalised to provide sufficient levels of carbon project supply.
"Without this, there is a real risk we underplay the important role that land-based sequestration can contribute to Australia's decarbonisation and nature positive goals," he said.
The score card also noted a "critical method gap" had emerged due to the sunsetting of some previously approved carbon farming project methods and delays to new method development.
This was leading to potential impacts to the supply of future vegetation-based ACCU credits
KPMG's national Climate Policy Advisory leader, Barry Sterland, said real progress across all jurisdictions had been recorded in the past three years, but further improvements could be made by adopting stronger national co-ordination.