Carbon trading climate

By Melissa Donchi
THE Upper Yarra was the setting of an international forum on climate change which concluded last week.
The two-week conference took place at the Alpine Retreat Hotel in Warburton and featured representatives from six countries including Fiji, Vanuatu, Solomon Islands, Cambodia and the Maldives.
Director of Live and Learn Environmental Education Christian Neilson said the group had met to discuss the emerging threats of climate change.
“We’ve come together to discuss our different experiences with the issues and try and develop strategies to avert the consequences,” Mr Neilson said.
“Our focus is to avoid deforestation projects and prove how local communities can benefit from a carbon economy.”
One of the main tasks of the group is to establish a carbon economy using a carbon credit system.
“We are working on a trading system where countries can offset their pollution by investing in energy projects,” Mr Neilson said. “This means developed countries such as Australia will be able to pay developing countries not to cut down their forests.”
While Mr Neilson admits this may seem like countries can just transfer their environmental responsibility to someone else, he says it will have significant benefits. “It’s a very new idea, getting paid to keep forests but we see this as a way of getting developing countries involved in productive trading system,” he said.
The outcome of the meeting was to establish a working carbon trading system by 2012 and Mr Neilson said that it was well on the way.
“We’ve developed a model to mobilise these communities on avoiding deforestation projects,” Mr Neilson said.
“This is a test case and we hope to use this model in other countries around the world.”