Queensland outlines proposed offsets policy and offsets exchange; Rudd releases YouTube climate ad; ’Solar assist’ the most promising high temperature solar thermal option; Sugar mill fined over effluent breaches

Queensland outlines proposed offsets policy and offsets exchange

Projects undergoing some forms of state-level assessment would need to provide environmental offsets to deal with residual impacts that can’t be avoided or minimised, says a Queensland Government discussion paper on a proposed state offsets policy and associated offsets exchange. The policy proposes:

• considering offsets only after efforts have been made to avoid and minimise environmental impacts;
• not permitting offsets to be used in an attempt to obtain approval for developments in areas where they could not otherwise occur (e.g. a tourism development in a national park);
• requiring that offsets achieve an equivalent or better environmental outcome;
• requiring offsets to provide environmental values as similar as possible to those being lost;
• requiring offsets to minimise the time lag between the impact and the offset; and
• requiring that offsets provide additional protection to values at risk or additional management actions to improve environmental values.

The policy would distinguish between primary offsets that protect environmental values of the same sort as those that will be affected and secondary offsets that provide other environmental benefits.

“Primary offsets are the preferred type of offsets,” the paper says.

An associated Green Invest Offsets Exchange Facility being developed by the Department of Natural Resources and Water would “facilitate the efficient and effective identification, evaluation, registration and ongoing administration of offset agreements to meet anticipated offset demand,” the paper says.

“Green Invest will facilitate the exchange of environmental offsets under a market-like situation.”

“Initially Green Invest will focus on the facilitation of vegetation and koala habitat offsets exchanges. However, the facility could also support offsets policies such as for water quality and carbon sequestration when such policies become more firmly established,” the paper says.

The paper says the offsets policy would not initially deal with offsets for greenhouse gas emissions, “as rules for offsets for greenhouse-gas emissions will be closely linked to any future carbon trading scheme”.

“Foreshadowing the emergence of a carbon offsets program for Queensland or Australia, the draft policy may be revised to allow for carbon offsets. This will be considered when more detail is available on what constitutes an acceptable offset under a carbon or emissions trading system. Any revisions would be consistent with the rules of the draft policy.”

Queensland already has specific offsets policies on marine fish habitat, vegetation management and koala habitat. These and other specific-issue offset policies yet to be developed would operate under the state-wide generic environmental offsets policy, the paper says.

Public comment closes November 30.

Environmental Offsets: Discussion Paper for Comment(Queensland Government, October 2007)

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