The Department is aware of a number of different voluntary carbon trading schemes, including the UK Woodland Carbon code, which allows forest owners to trade carbon on a voluntary basis and for voluntary compliance purposes by businesses. The Irish model for support for direct supports for the forestry sector is different in that the Department continues to fund afforestation by providing a range of financial supports in the form of grants, premiums and a range of tax incentives on the sale of timber.
The Department currently has no plans to develop a voluntary carbon market but this will be kept under review. Carbon farming is highlighted in the EU Green Deal under the farm to fork strategy and the European Commission are examining ways of encouraging activities that remove carbon across sectors. The Department does see potential opportunities to attract private finance from voluntary carbon markets and forest owners and organisations can avail and develop these opportunities as long as they don't impact on Ireland's international accounting and reporting requirements.
The Department will examine developing proposals by the European Commission on carbon farming to see if existing funding models can be improved. The Department currently operates the Woodland Environment Fund which includes a mix of private finance and state aid to part fund the establishment of these forests and this model has worked well. The important point to note about voluntary carbon markets in general is that they are setup to incentivise activities that are in addition to what currently takes place. Incentivising new afforestation rather that existing forests is the main focus of the UK Woodland Carbon Code.