'We're far behind many developed nations': how Australia's carbon emissions stack up

Thousands of students will lead climate strikes across the country on Friday, joining millions around the world demanding greater action to protect Earth from emissions.

The global rallies come ahead of Monday's United Nations climate summit in New York, which Prime Minister Scott Morrison is not scheduled to attend. Minister for Foreign Affairs Marise Payne will represent Australia.

The School Strike for Climate in Australia has singled out three main demands: no new coal or gas projects; 100 per cent of electricity to be supplied by renewable energy by 2030; and provision of a fund to support a "just transition" for fossil-fuel workers and their communities.

Schoolchildren strike for action against climate change earlier this year in March.Credit: Justin McManus

Australia's emissions

The Abbott government in 2015 signed up to the Paris climate agreement with a pledge to reduce 2005-level carbon emissions to 26-28 per cent by 2030. The accord aims to limit global warming to as low as 1.5-2 degrees compared with pre-industrial levels.

Australia's choice of 2005 as a base year coincided with a peak in land clearing.

Official figures suggest the decline in deforestation since has been the one area of the economy consistently contributing to a reduction in emissions, although environmental groups have long queried how recent spikes in land clearing in Queensland and NSW have not been reflected in national inventory numbers.

Environment minister Greg Hunt is congratulated by colleagues after carbon tax repeal bills pass the lower House in 2014.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Australia's emissions have been edging up since about the time the carbon tax was scrapped in mid-2014. In the year to March 31 this year, they were rising at the fastest rate in seven years and totalled 538.9 million tonnes of carbon dioxide-equivalent. (The "equivalent" accounts for the impact of methane and other non-CO2 pollution.)

Lower emissions from the shrinking coal-fired power sector - as renewable energy expands - have lately been eclipsed by soaring emissions from the gas sector.

'Laggard'

The Morrison government highlights that Australia's per-capita emissions have fallen 40 per cent from 1990 (and the "intensity" of emissions of the economy has dropped almost two-thirds).

Steam and smoke billowing from Victoria's Loy Yang brown coal-fired power station.Credit: Simon O'Dwyer

But as Climate Analytics notes, at more than 20 tonnes of CO2-equivalent per Australian, the tally remains twice as high as the average of the G20 nations. Rich economies such as the US and the European Union have made bigger improvements over the past three decades.

"We're far behind many developed nations," Frank Jotzo, director of the Australian National University's, Centre for Climate and Energy Policy, says.

On target?

Angus Taylor, Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction, says the government's $3.5 billion Climate Solutions Package will ensure Australia meets "our international obligations without wrecking our economy".

Then Treasurer Scott Morrison holds up a lump of coal during Question Time at Parliament House in February 2017. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

"We expect to exceed our Kyoto 2020 target by 367 million tonnes and we have laid out how we will achieve our Paris 2030 targets to the last tonne," he said last month.

However, banking the Kyoto "surplus" is key to Australia meeting the Paris goal for the 2021-30 decade. With this accounting help - one which Germany, UK, Sweden and New Zealand won't use - the abatement task shrinks from about 695 million tonnes to 328 million.

Tim Baxter, a former Melbourne University lecturer now with the Climate Council, says if other nations followed Australia, the world would warm by a catastrophic four degrees by 2100.

"The Coalition is not on track to meet its pathetic targets," he says. "Not in a Canter, not in a Hilux and not in the rusted-out carcass of a Cortina that they call their climate policy."

Global view

Australia's annual domestic greenhouse gas emissions are about 1.4 per cent of the global total.

Coal and other fossil fuel exports mean Australia's global carbon footprint is much bigger than domestic pollution alone.Credit: Nic Walker

Doubtless, Australia's emissions are dwarfed by bigger economies. But as a nation exposed to extreme weather and with ecosystems such as the Great Barrier Reef vulnerable, Australia has a lot riding on the Paris accord.

"As long as rich countries like Australia are refusing to budge, it is unlikely that China and India will move," Heffa Schuecking, a campaigner with Germany's Urgewald NGO, said.

And if those nations act, Australia has a lot of its economy exposed too. By Climate Analytics' count, Australia's fossil-fuel exports alone amount to 3.6 per cent of annual global emissions.

Carsten Muller, a German MP visiting Australia this week, told the Herald his conservative party is discussing a "border adjustment tax" to punish nations not doing enough on climate change.

His concern is Germany would risk hollowing out its industry if it pursued an appropriately aggressive climate policy but other nations - such as China - didn't follow suit.

"It's a very raw idea right now," the MP, who serves on the Bundestag's Committee on Economic Affairs and Energy, says. "I hope the government will do it."