WOOL should be counted as a carbon credit, says PETER HUNT

The Federal Government has backed the plantation industry's bid to claim harvested trees as a carbon sink.

Under existing Kyoto rules a harvested tree is counted as a carbon emission.

Only trees planted after 1990, and which remain standing for 100 years, can be classified as a carbon credit or abatement.

However, the Government seems to think it can change world opinion on the issue, with a bit of backing from our timber-rich mates in New Zealand and Canada.

The Commonwealth will urge other Kyoto protocol signatories to change the rules so that a credit can be claimed on harvested timber that goes into houses, furniture, bridges etc.

Who knows how this timber will be tracked, which part of a harvested tree can be counted as a credit because it goes into a house versus what gets turned into paper, burnt or dumped at a landfill site.

But if the timber in houses is to be claimed as a carbon credit, then why not include all those other carbon sinks that are just sitting out there waiting to be counted, valued and sold off as an abatement.

Why shouldn't wool growers be able to claim the carbon sunk into their clip, which is 45.2 per cent carbon.

Growers could trade these carbon abatements or even sell them on to fashion houses.

I can just see the advertising slogan, "Wear wool and keep the world cool".

The wool industry could even use its fibre's carbon credentials to mount a fight-back against those dirty greenhouse gas-emitting oil-derived synthetics.

Sure you'd have to ensure those woolly jumpers, pants and blankets survived in some form or other for a century to meet the Kyoto rules.

But there's plenty of evidence to prove woollen garments are recycled through op-shops a few times before being turned into roof insulation or sent to India to be mixed and re-spun. Then there's all those woollen carpets and rugs.

The argument for wool as a carbon sink is not that different to the one the Government is trying to mount for plantation industry timber.

The NSW and Queensland cotton boys could even jump on the bandwagon. Even Queensland's sugar-cane growers could mount a campaign claiming the bagasse (milled cane pulp) that goes into fibre-board could be counted as a credit.

The amounts we're talking about are small, but when you add up all the carbon in the national wool clip or cotton harvest it turns into a rather healthy little earner.

So where do we draw the line?

What about hairdressers, surely they could make a few bob by baling up those hair clippings to claim as a credit.

Should future prime ministers include a carbon credit in the congratulatory letters sent out to centogenarians?

"Dear Mrs Smith, congratulations on turning 100. Oh, and here's a $10 credit for the carbon you've managed to store in your body over the past century."

Sounds bizarre.

Well yes, of course.

But what's even stranger is our government's belief that we can use market economics to cap greenhouse gas emissions from carbon cycles that even our best scientists don't fully understand.

It's a disastrous marriage of economic assumption to scientific uncertainty.

The simplest and most sensible solution is a carbon tax, simple, transparent and applied at the carbon source.

But Kevin Rudd would rather eat a lump of coal than utter the big T-word.

In the end we will end up with a complex, expensive and inequitable trading scheme that will be open to manipulation.

Just think of the amount of time and effort industry groups and businesses are already spending estimating the financial impacts of emissions trading.

Think of all greenhouse gas sinks and sources. Then imagine trying to cap these emissions and create a market in carbon credits, while also issuing free permits to some businesses but not others.

Sound complicated? Does to me.

Victoria's largest dairy company, Murray Goulburn, is already raising concerns that it won't meet the thresholds needed to gain free emissions permits from government.

In the end the only ones benefiting from emissions trading will be consultant economists and lawyers.

Let's hope businesses and the environment don't suffer too much damage in the meantime.

Peter Hunt is a senior Weekly Times reporter.