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> 7.5 million
TREES PLANTED
since 1997
18 April 2008
Submission - Emissions Trading Scheme Discussion Paper
Greenfleet welcomes the opportunity to respond to the Emissions Trading Discussion Paper. Emissions trading is an important element of a broader policy response to climate change by the Australian Government. It is important that the Australian Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) maximises the potential to reduce Australia's emissions footprint in a manner that encourages similar actions across the globe. We believe that the emissions trading scheme design can set important precedents for broader global arrangements. Australia has the opportunity to design a robust scheme that leads the world and overcomes technical challenges not previously addressed by other schemes. In particular, Australia and New Zealand have progressive and advanced forest sink standards to which other schemes refer. It is in Australia's interest to maximise this competitive advantage and to lead the world in generating meaningful action to reduce the impacts of climate change to a verifiable and robust standard that retains confidence in actions being taken by the market and broader community.
Greenfleet's mission since its inception more than 10 years ago, is to reduce the impact of greenhouse emissions on the environment. To this end we encourage our supporters to avoid, reduce and finally offset greenhouse emissions they generate. Our voluntary offset program, which was the first of its kind in Australia, will by the middle of this year have planted sufficient native forests to sequester more than 1,000,000 CO2-e tonnes. These forests have been voluntarily established on behalf of our supporters and not only take carbon from the atmosphere but will also deliver broader environmental benefits including creating habitat, improving water quality and addressing salinity. These additional environmental benefits are very important to mitigating and adapting our landscape to the projected impacts of climate change. Improving landscape resilience is fundamental to this effort.
Greenfleet establishes permanent biodiverse native forests to a verified national standard. Greenfleet is the first and only not for profit organisation to be approved as a Greenhouse Friendly Abatement provider, the Australian Government Standard for verified abatement. Greenfleet's supporters include more than 10,000 individuals as well as large and small organisations including QFleet (QLD Government Fleet), Fosters, Telstra, AAMI, Pacific Brands, Europcar, Symbion Health, City of Melbourne, other local governments, water authorities, federal government departments and numerous other large and small organisations.
Attached below is our submission to this important discussion.