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The SMH story titled “Security improving but experts warn of potential for fraud,” featured carbon trading experts saying that there is potential for fraud in the global market, but that checks and balances are improving. It quotes Schultz as saying: “Rigour is important … One of the lessons is the need for the market to understand what they are buying. It takes a while to be sophisticated about what is a shonky product – like a tree plantation that doesn’t exist – versus something that has been rigorously audited.”

While the details of the Australian system were yet to be fully spelled out, he expected it would be consistent with “international norms.” He is also quoted as saying: “Audit is an essential part of the process. You need a national standard, which at the moment is the Kyoto protocol … The carbon farming initiative is another standard.”

Schultz said carbon trading was becoming like buying any other commodity, but some companies will find that investing in Australian-based abatement projects such as forests and farms that cut their use of fertilisers is better than looking overseas.

“Some product is cheaper than others and some has a higher or lower risk profile than others,” he said. “There is significant upside for companies that are able to invest directly into the primary market – companies that create credit, create the project itself as opposed to buying on the secondary market, which is cheaper but has a higher risk.”

Schultz said the public could trust the auditing system as “these are the same people who tell you ships won’t sink and planes won’t fall out of the sky.”

“The  same level of audit is brought to this, and in fact it is more rigorous,” he said. The public concern was driven largely because in many cases “you are trading something that didn’t happen,” he said. ”Most of what you are trading is an avoided emission. You are trading something that didn’t happen, like stopping deforestation. It’s not planting trees but has a great impact … By not chopping down a forest that is however many millions of tonnes of CO2 that goes into the atmosphere and that compensates another activity.”

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