The Western Australian Greens have publicly opposed a decision by their federal party room regarding carbon accounting policies in Australia. The internal friction arose after the federal party room declined to back a disallowance motion aimed at overturning the federal government’s Improved Native Forest Management (INFM) method. Despite internal lobbying from Western Australian representatives, the federal party room’s stance ensured that the INFM framework remains operational across the country.

The primary challenge driving this dispute centers on the validity of forest-based carbon accounting mechanisms and their role in national emissions targets. The INFM method enables state governments to voluntarily halt planned timber harvesting in public native forests and generate carbon credits from the avoided biomassBiomass is a complex biological organic or non-organic solid product derived from living or recently living organism and available naturally. Various types of wastes such as animal manure, waste paper, sludge and many industrial wastes are also treated as biomass because like natural biomass these More loss. Critics within the regional party express concern that these offsets do not reduce overall greenhouse gas pollution. Instead, they argue that generating tradable credits allows major industrial emitters under Australia’s safeguard mechanism to compensate for ongoing fossil fuel emissions rather than achieving direct point-source reductions.

To address the issue, Western Australia Greens parliamentarians—including Senator Jordon Steele-John, Senator Nick McKim, and Senator Vanessa Bleyer—voted in favor of the disallowance motion to strike down the INFM crediting framework. Regional party leaders, such as forests and woodlands spokesperson Jess Beckerling, advocated for treating public native forests exclusively as ecological and cultural assets rather than financialized carbon stores. Beckerling noted that managing lands primarily for market-based carbon accumulation could introduce operational risks, such as increased pressure for prescribed burning regimes.

The defeat of the disallowance motion leaves the INFM methodology active within Australia’s carbon market framework. Party calculations indicate the methodology could yield up to 1.5 million carbon credits, a volume sufficient to offset the reported operational emissions of major energy producers such as Woodside. Moving forward, the Greens (WA) confirmed they will maintain their opposition to emission-prolonging offset frameworks while continuing to campaign for legislative protections for native forest ecosystems based on biodiversity and intrinsic environmental metrics.