Australia will use carry-over emissions credits to meet 2030 Paris emissions target

Australia will count carry-over emissions credits so the PM can honour his claim we’ll meet our 2030 Paris target “in a canter”.

Minister for the Environment Melissa Price. Picture: Kym Smith.

Australia will use carried-over emissions credits to achieve its 2030 Paris climate emissions target in a controversial move allowing Scott Morrison to justify his claim that the Paris target will be met “in a canter”.

The Prime Minister today revealed Australia would use 367Mt worth of C02 credits from overshooting its Kyoto agreement commitments to more than halve the nation’s emissions abatement task under the Paris deal.

The carbon accounting decision means that rather than having to find 695Mt of carbon emissions cuts over the decade to 2030, Australia will now only have to lower emissions by 328Mt.

Mr said Australia’s latest carbon emissions projections, released today, confirmed the government “has set Australia on track to meet and beat our 2030 target”.

“The emissions gap has fallen from 3.3 billion tonnes (in 2008) to just 328 million tonnes, including ‘carry over’ from the extra emissions Australia has cut during the first and second Kyoto Protocol commitments,” he said.

“That significant progress highlights Australia is going to meet our 2030 target in a canter with the suite of policies our government has put in place that support the environment while also delivering on our plan for a stronger economy.”

Using carry-over credits was not ruled out at the recent climate talks in Katowice, Poland, however New Zealand a number of European nations have declared they will not use their credits.

The move follows new figures out today revealing Australia’s emissions are on track to fall by just 7 per cent on 2005 levels by 2030 — well under the promised 26 per cent Paris target.

The figure show Australia is projected to emit 563 megatonnes (Mt) of carbon dioxide in 2030, with transport and agriculture emissions all continuing to rise.

A 26 per cent reduction in 2005 carbon emissions by 2030 would require 448 Mt of emissions or less.

However, by using carried-over credits from meeting 2020 Kyoto targets, Australia effectively now only has to lower emissions to about 480Mt through future policy decisions and technological improvements.

Mr Morrison first pledged that Australia would meet its Paris commitments “in a canter” after scrapping the national energy guarantee and splitting the climate change and energy portfolios.

Opposition energy and climate change spokesman Mark Butler said the updated forecasts showed carbon emissions would continue to rise under the Coalition.

“This time the government’s own projections shockingly show emissions in 2030 will only be 7 per cent below 2005 levels, well short of the inadequate Liberals’ target of 26-28 per cent cut,” Mr Butler said.

“Confirming the government has no effective climate change policy to bring emissions down in the future, the projections confirm total emissions are projected to grow from today’s levels by over 5 per cent to 2030.”

Labor has vowed to cut carbon emissions by 50 per cent in what the Coalition has declared is an “economy wrecking” target.

Environment Minister Melissa Price said the latest projections, which show Australia will meet its 2020 Kyoto emissions reduction target, was “a great result for the environment”.

“Our 2020 target is a significant improvement on the 2017 estimates, which projected Australia would beat its 2020 target by 294 Mt of CO2,” she said.

“We have also made significant progress to our 2030 target.”