By Mike Foley
The Albanese government is being criticised by its opponents over Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions, with the Greens and Coalition claiming that carbon pollution has actually risen despite Labor’s commitment to deliver a 43 per cent cut on 2005 levels by the end of the decade.
Greens leader Adam Bandt said on Tuesday that “climate emissions are now higher under [Prime Minister] Anthony Albanese than they were when Scott Morrison left office”.
Emissions reduction has flat-lined since the government was elected, due in part to a bounce back from the COVID-19 pandemic. Credit: Aresna Villanueva
Opposition energy spokesman Ted O’Brien said in November that “emissions [have] been going up, not down, since Labor came to office”.
This masthead has fact-checked that claim.
Emissions are up … slightly
Australia’s greenhouse emissions crept upwards, slowly, over the past year, rising 0.3 per cent during the 12 months to September last year, according to preliminary calculations from the most recent data.
Australia’s annual emissions levels have remained virtually unchanged since now and June 2022, when Scott Morrison left office and the Labor government was elected.
In the year to September, the most recent data available, Australia generated 441 million tonnes of greenhouse gases, which was 1.2 million tonnes more than the previous 12 months. This equates to a rise of 0.3 per cent – a minor uptick given the variations over time.
However, the Albanese government has pledged to cut Australia’s emissions by 43 per cent by 2030, and to achieve this goal by swapping clean energy for fossil fuels. To this end, it aims to raise the share of renewables to 82 per cent of the electricity grid by the end of the decade, which would result in polluting coal-fired electricity almost gone by around 2035.
So why have emissions flat-lined over the past three years?
What’s causing the problem?
The first factor is the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced lockdowns across the country and artificially lowered major sources of emissions like transport and industry for nearly two years, starting in 2020. When lockdowns were lifted at the end of 2021, economic activity bounced back and drove emissions up.
Annual emissions hit 490 million tonnes in December 2019, just before the pandemic hit but are now running at a significantly lower rate, down 10 per cent to 441 million tonnes in the year to September 2024.
The second factor holding back emission reduction is bottlenecks in energy infrastructure, as landholders opposed to new transmission lines on their properties have slowed down progress on linking solar and wind farms to capital cities.
The government has said that Australia has made major gains since 2005, when emissions started being counted, with annual greenhouse gas emissions down 28 per cent.
Government projections show that with current policies, including the uptake of electric vehicles, Australia is on track to meet its climate commitments.
“Emissions are trending down and we’re on track to achieve our legislated targets,” a government spokesperson said.
Grattan Institute energy and climate change program director Tony Wood said the government had a strong record of renewable energy growth during its term, but it faced a significant challenge in reaching its energy and emissions goals.
The trajectory of emissions cuts had to go on a “black diamond run” like a downhill skier between now and 2030 to achieve the government’s 43 per cent target.
Wood said the government would need to add the equivalent of 60 per cent of the electricity grid’s current generation capacity in renewables alone – about 40 gigawatts – in the next two years.
“Once you have done that, you would have to do an enormous amount of construction in a short space of time in a world where you’ve got a skills shortage and you’ve also got a massive big infrastructure project that’s competing for materials, people and equipment,” Wood said.
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