Australia’s biggest polluters, including coal and gas companies, are being allowed to keep expanding and keep winning new approvals. The trick is so-called carbon offsets.

Under the Safeguard Mechanism, fossil fuel facilities can meet their obligations by buying credits instead of cutting pollution. Many of those credits are dodgy. They are generated by paying for things like not logging native forests that were never going to be logged, and they don’t deliver the real, additional and permanent emissions reductions that are claimed. The result is a climate policy that safeguards the fossil fuel industry, not the climate.

Join us in Launceston for a Politics in the Pub conversation about how dodgy offsets are being used to wave through new coal and gas projects, why native forests are being turned into a licence to pollute, and what it would take to end the offsets loophole and get on with phasing out fossil fuels.

The discussion will explore how the Safeguard Mechanism and the Improved Native Forest Management (INFM) carbon offset method let the biggest polluters substitute paper credits for real abatement, and what that means for forests, for communities and for Australia’s credibility as it prepares to lead international climate negotiations. It will also look at what a genuine transition away from fossil fuels, with no new coal and gas and no offsets loophole, would look like.

SPEAKERS:

Senator Vanessa Bleyer — Greens Senator for Lutruwita/Tasmania

As a respected environmental lawyer and former President of Lawyers for Forests, Vanessa combines deep expertise with a clear sense of justice. Vanessa is the Australian Greens portfolio holder for Agriculture, Healthy Oceans, Science, Industry & Innovation and Tourism.

Scott Jordan —Takayna Campaigner, Bob Brown Foundation

Scott has spent the last 22 years defending Takayna from logging and mining proposals. His work has involved coordinating blockades on the frontlines, to running shareholder targeted campaigns, parliamentary advocacy, to collaborating on policies to end native forest logging and secure protection for wild places.    

Alice Hardinge — Campaign Manager, Wilderness Society Tasmania

Alice Hardinge is an environmental campaigner with over ten years of experience in grassroots and professional environmental advocacy. With a background ranging from front-line direct action in threatened forests, to directing strategic litigation, to political and corporate lobbying, Alice is passionate about using a variety of tactics and working with communities to achieve environmental and First Nations justice. As well as working as the Tasmanian Campaigns Manager for the Wilderness Society, Alice volunteers on the executive of Lawyers for Forests and the ACF Council. 

Louise Morris — Head of Fossil Fuel Transition, The Australia Institute 

Louise Morris is the Head of Fossil Fuel Transition at The Australia Institute. Louise is an award-winning advocate with 20 years’ experience encompassing climate, energy, forest protection, and law reform in the not-for-profit sector, and federal politics before joining The Australia Institute.