🗳️ Why the shift?

Whitehorse Council has a longstanding commitment to environmental sustainability, demonstrated through its Climate Response Strategy 2023-2030, carbon-neutral certification, and investments in renewable energy and biodiversity projects.

During a Whitehorse Council meeting on February 3, Eley Ward councillor Daniel Griffiths raised a notice of motion to request a report on the costs and implications of ceasing its purchase of carbon offsets, with the motion receiving unanimous support.

While offsets have been used to neutralise emissions, councillors are questioning whether they are the most effective way to reach stated sustainability goals, and advocate for more direct action on local environmental projects within the community.

💡 How do local councils use carbon offsets?

According to The Australia Institute, a project can create carbon credits by carrying out activities which store, reduce or avoid greenhouse gas emissions.

This commonly means planting trees, or not removing vegetation on land projects.

These carbon credits can then be sold to other organisations, such as local councils, to allow them to “offset” their carbon emissions.

🎠 What do Whitehorse Council’s emissions look like?

Whitehorse Council’s carbon credit purchasing was first included in its Climate Response Strategy 2023-2030 document, highlighting that it would prioritise offsets that were cost-effective and deliver a high level of confidence in carbon emissions reduction.

In the 2022/23 financial year, Whitehorse Council generated 17,550 tonnes of emissions, which were offset by investing in carbon offset projects.

But Councillor Griffiths said he did not think carbon credits adequately address carbon output and there were better uses for ratepayers’ money in promoting or encouraging sustainability efforts in the area.

“My estimation is over the next five years, we’re projected to pay around a million dollars,” he said. “I think we need to be careful with every dollar of the ratepayers’ funds.

“The purpose of this motion is to not just stop buying them, but keep our foot on the accelerator of the good action that council has done in the sustainability space.”

Some of the projects which council has so far supported via its carbon credit purchasing included geothermal and wind energy in Turkey and India and the Jawoyn Fire Project at a cost nearly 20 times higher than alternative options.

A 2024 study showed 16 per cent of the 2346 carbon mitigation projects involved real emissions reductions.

🧠 Experts say there are pros and cons to the carbon credits system

Carbon Storage Partnership director Professor Matthew Harrison said there were pros and cons to carbon offsetting and the carbon credits system.

“Climate change is contributing to dangerous extreme climatic events, such as extreme heat waves, drought and fire risk,” he told the Eastern Melburnian.

🌎 Professor Harrison said carbon offsetting is a necessary part of the ever-growing fight towards a net-zero world, because there will always be processes and industries that we can’t fully decarbonise.

Professor Harrison said what Whitehorse Council is proposing is moving from “offsetting” to “insetting” carbon emissions —  a plan where the council reduces its own carbon footprint by investing in emission reduction projects in the local community, rather than purchasing carbon offsets from external projects.

“Insetting has got the advantage over offsetting in that there’s much less financial risk,” he said.

🏡 What’s next for the council?

Deputy mayor and Simpson Ward councillor Prue Cutts said she was keen to see the report come back to council so they could look into shifting funds towards projects which would benefit Whitehorse directly, including absorbing emissions by planting vegetation along Whitehorse’s section of the Syndal Heatherdale Pipe Reserve Trail.

“If we’ve got these carbon offsets happening, we’re not actually thinking about what we’re actually doing here ourselves,” she said.

Image Credit: Zoe Richardson/Unsplash