Voluntary Carbon Market Association formed

The voluntary market wil be very important for soil carbon, especially in the early stages of the game. For this reason, we support the Voluntary Carbon Markets Association (VCMA) because the voluntary market isthreatened by the Government's Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme.
The main aim of the VCMA is to restore the link between voluntary abatement action by Australians and real reduction in Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions. The VCMA also aims to expand the role of voluntary abatement.
The VCMA was established in November 2008 aand represents a broad range of organisations and individuals, including:
• Providers of offsets from both within and outside sectors covered by the CPRS and GreenPower providers;
•Organisations (such as businesses, local governments, etc) that wish to be seen as ‘carbon neutral’, or wish to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and contribute to Australia’s reduction in emissions by purchase of Greenpower or offsets;
•Businesses that provide goods and services that may contribute to voluntary abatement;
• Community organisations representing the rights of households and/or others to gain recognition for their voluntary abatement action," it says.
The President of the VCMA, Ric Brazzale has had a long involvement iet and is a supporter ofoluntary actions by companies and individuals to reduce emissions - including Green Power schemes and buying offsets for emissions on plane flights - now save 6 million tonnes of emissions a year, and involve one in six Australian families. "Inadequate targets will lead to inadequate emission reductions," Mr Brazzale said. "It is imperative to encourage voluntary action by individuals and business to achieve emissions reductions beyond relatively minor levels."
The association is urging the Government to allow carbon savings through "measurable and verified voluntary action" by households or business to extinguish emissions trading permits . Without this, it warned, emissions trading "will effectively decimate the voluntary market in Australia".
Mr Brazzale is on the same wavelength as the Coalition when it comes to urgency and the Legacy Load. He wrote the following in The Age in 2006:
"Time is a precious commodity we don't have much of in relation to global warming. Every tonne of carbon dioxide we release into the atmosphere is up there for the next 100 years. Every year we wait is a 100-year legacy that makes our job that much harder and requires much steeper cuts later. If Stern is right, making nuclear power the vanguard of an energy revolution pitches Australia head first into risky territory — economically and otherwise — simply because of the delay it demands."
He argues for immediate deployment of solar and other alternatives.
But he has made, in these few sentences, the case for soil carbon.