Australia is expected to announce its decision on whether to remake four expired Australian Carbon Credit Unit (ACCU) methods "imminently", while announcements on other key methods would come later this year, a senior official said today.
The Emissions Reduction Assurance Committee (Erac) — the statutory body responsible for ensuring the integrity of Australia's carbon crediting framework — gave its advice a few weeks ago about beef cattle herd management, reforestation and afforestation 2.0, land and sea transport, and source separated organic waste methods, Erac chair Karen Hussey told Argus on the sidelines of the 2025 National Carbon Farming Conference in Albury on 4 November.
Assistant minister for climate change and energy Josh Wilson will consider whether to remake the methods, as well as their priority, with an announcement possibly being made later this month, Hussey said.
Of the four methods, beef cattle herd management has had the highest number of ACCUs issued at a combined 1.13mn units, although spread across just three projects out of 12 currently registered with the Clean Energy Regulator.
The method was suspended in December, ahead of its scheduled expiry on 30 September on evidence it no longer complied with integrity standards, the department of climate change, energy, the environment and water (DCCEEW) said at the time. The decision was criticised by lobby group Cattle Australia.
The three other methods have faced low uptake. But a remake of the reforestation and afforestation 2.0 method might prove important for the potential inclusion of oil seed tree harvesting as eligible activities, which could bring much-anticipated support to Australia's nascent biofuels sector.
Decision on soil carbon method later this year
An update about the ongoing review of the Soil Organic Carbon 2021 method, which Hussey was hoping to share with delegates this week, will only come later this year. This is due to the complexity of the review process, with Erac reviewing 42 submissions to a public consultation and going through 38 individual project offsets reports, Hussey told delegates.
The soil carbon methodology is also linked to the long-planned Integrated Farm and Land Management (IFLM) method, the first in Australia to combine multiple activities that store carbon in soil and vegetation in a single method.
Development of the IFLM method has proved controversial, with the latest update from the DCCEEW in July spurring strong criticism from the Australian carbon industry.
The DCCEEW is expected to submit an exposure draft of the IFLM method for preliminary consideration by Erac at a meeting on 12 December, Hussey told Argus.
The statutory body has faced an intense schedule over the past couple of years. It reviewed 39 expressions of interest last year under the proponent-led model for new methods, with the government picking up four proposals as a priority.
Erac also worked on a complex new method for landfill gas facilities, on which a decision is expected from the climate change and energy minister before the end of the year.
More recently, there has been work on changes to the animal effluent management method and on two new savanna fire management methodologies, which have the potential to boost supply, compared with current settings.
"No matter how hard you try, methods take a long time to go from beginning to end," Hussey told Argus.
"I think the whole system is going to get a lot more efficient when we move to the proponent-led process, but we still have some legacy methods that need to be finished. I'm looking forward to mid next year," she added.
