Carbon trading globally is already valued at $65b annually and will be a trillion dollar industry within 5 years. Carbon trading could be a major drag-drain on regional economies with potential costly imports of carbon credits. It will affect the competitive position of regions based on the degree of dependency on centralised system of carbon credits and trading, which will cause leakage of dollars and business opportunities.

The Townsville Carbon Trading Exchange and the carbon trading industry cluster is facilitating the development of carbon trading initially based on bio-sequestration of carbon in soils using biological farming agents. The Trading Exchange will use similar model to the community banking model with a Townsville Carbon Trading Association being a beneficiary of trading and sponsoring sustainable projects in the community.

There is a major opportunity for Australia and Desert Knowledge Australia to become global leaders in carbon sequestration through soils and vegetation in desert and arid areas. The Townsville Carbon Exchange is registered to trade on the National Environment Registry and through this on the Chicago Environment Registry. We are currently trading and should have 100,000 hectares or $50m of trade on the market by November 2008. We are working with farmers and graziers across Australia and are seeking to develop partnerships to facilitate soil sequestration of carbon and sustainable farming. There is a major opportunity for desert regions of Australia to gain significant cash injection to their regional economies and to grow coemptive knowledge competencies sin carbon sequestration in desert and arid regions.

As the Prime Minister has indicated, sustainable farming and biosequestion of carbon in soils offer great potential to address both the challenges of climate change and to facilitate sustainable farming practices in an era of rising energy and fertilizer costs. The Townsville Carbon Trading Exchange has almost completed the validation of the carbon value chain process and will commence trading shortly. It is anticipated that the value f carbon created traded outside the region will grow rapidly from $50m annually to $1b export industry by 2012.