The former Australian chief scientist and senior academic, Prof Ian Chubb, has been appointed to head a thorough review of Australia’s carbon credit scheme as experts escalate calls for a complete overhaul of the system.
Chris Bowen, the climate change minister, will announce on Friday that Chubb, a neuroscientist and former vice-chancellor of the Australian National University, will lead the six-month review of the scheme, after a respected whistleblower described it as a fraud and waste of taxpayer money.
Carbon credits are bought by governments and businesses as an alternative to cutting carbon dioxide emissions. While their use to help meet emissions targets has significant support – particularly among polluting companies promising to offset their affect on the planet – critics have raised concern about whether credits issued in Australia represent real emissions cuts beyond what would have happened anyway.
Bowen promised the review last year after research from the Australian Conservation Foundation and progressive thinktank the Australia Institute estimated 20% of credits did not represent real cuts and were essentially “junk”.
This conclusion was reinforced in March by Prof Andrew Macintosh, who spent years working on the integrity of the carbon credit system as chair of the Emissions Reduction Assurance Committee. He said the scheme was “largely a sham” as virtually all methods used to create credits had serious integrity issues in either their design or how they...
Police have applied for a bench warrant for YouTuber Jeon Han-gil (real name Jeon Yu-gwan), a former Korean history lecturer, on charges of defamation under the Information and Communications Netwo...