LULUCF, the ‘Australia Clause’ and how the Australian Government has used up its emissions ‘fudge factor’

Since the treaty was negotiated, Article 3.7 of the Kyoto Protocol, a paragraph that relates to the treatment of emissions from land-use and forestry, has been colloquially dubbed the “Australia clause”.

Article 3.7 was added to the agreement at the insistence of then Howard era environment minister Senator Robert Hill. In short, the clause allows countries that had net emissions from land-use change, usually land clearing, to include those emissions in their baseline calculation.

This was of great benefit to Australia as at the year when the baseline was determined, 1990, Australia was undertaking significant amounts of land clearing. Almost immediately after 1990, as part of an initiative lead by the Hawke Government, land-clearing was reduced considerably.

Instead, the country established policies like the highly successful Landcare program, and emissions from land-clearing provided a significant credit to Australia’s emissions budget under the Kyoto Protocol.

Ever since, Australia has relied on this credit to meet its commitments to the Kyoto Protocol. The credit was so large in fact, that Australia has been able to significantly increase its emissions from other sources, particularly…