A new analysis breaks down how greenhouse gas emissions increasing from transport, natural gas and coal mining significantly represent a challenge to Australia’s conservative Liberal-National government in meeting future climate targets without new policies.
The analysis produced for the progressive research group Australia Institute shows that since 2005, the year against which the government has chosen to benchmark its United Nations sponsored Paris Agreement target, Australia’s emissions from transport are up 23 per cent.
At the same time pollution from burning fossil fuels, mainly natural gas, but also coal, in manufacturing, construction and domestic heating has risen 30 per cent.
“Fugitive” emissions released during liquefied natural gas (LNG) processing and coal mining have jumped 55 per cent.
Other parts of the economy are getting cleaner, emissions from electricity generation, which is still the biggest sector of national emissions at about a third, are down 10 per cent.
There have been smaller cuts from agriculture, waste and industrial processes.
However, the analysis of government data by Dr Hugh Saddler, an energy consultant and ANU honorary associate professor at the Crawford School of Public Policy, suggests Australia cannot meet the target it set at the UN Paris climate summit without policies to address where emissions are rising substantially.
The Guardian reports Dr Saddler as saying at the moment the LNP government does not have any.
“They absolutely don’t have any policy to stop emissions rising from transport and in the other areas such as LNG and coal exports the policy is to actually encourage them to grow, the government would like to think they would keep going up and up,” Dr Saddler told The Guardian.
The data is contained in Dr Saddler’s latest national emissions audit, which is published by the Australia Institute.
Australia’s total emissions are now estimated to be 12.7 per cent less than they were in 2005.
They have increased each year since 2015, when they were 14.5 per cent below the benchmark year.
The LNP government’s target is a 26 to 28 per cent cut by 2030.
Dr Saddler said it showed why the LNP government was pushing hard to use what are known as carryover credits to meet its Paris Agreement target.
The credits represent the amount Australia expects to finish ahead of its 2020 target under the previous UN climate deal, the Kyoto Protocol.
Several countries, notably members of the Association of Small Island States such as Tuvalu, challenged Australia at UN climate talks in Bonn, Germany last week over its plan to use the carryover credits.
The European Union and New Zealand are among others opposed to their use.
Opponents say using carryover credits would effectively reduce Australia’s 2030 target to a 16 per cent cut.
They say carryover credits are merely a reflection that Australia set easy-to-meet targets under the Kyoto Protocol, a pollution increase between 1990 and 2010, then a five per cent cut between 2000 and 2020, and that all countries will need to drop accounting tricks and make much deeper cuts if the world is to limit global heating to as close to 1.5 degrees Celsius as possible.
The Guardian reports Richie Merzian, the Australia Institute’s climate and energy program director, said using carryover credits was the most egregious example of the LN2 government’s contempt for the international climate system.
“Australia is isolated as the only OECD country pushing to exploit this loophole,” he said.
The Paris Agreement also said countries would become more ambitious over time and that their commitments would reflect their “highest possible ambition”.
Opponents said carryover credits do not fit this definition as they transparently weaken a target.
The Guardian reports that when asked about carryover credits, the government said Australia had made “responsible, achievable and balanced commitments” to reduce emissions and has a strong track record in meeting and beating its targets.
The Minister for Emissions Reduction, Angus Taylor, has also argued that the growth in emissions from Australia’s rapidly expanding LNG industry should be seen as a positive as the gas would be reducing the amount of coal burned in Asia.
Dr Saddler’s report suggests this makes little sense given the government is also supporting a significant expansion of coal mining in Queensland.
Dr Saddler said there was a possibility that emissions could be reduced where they are currently growing through state government and city-based policies and changes in technology and on international markets.
He gave the example of electric vehicles, which were expected to be cost competitive with petrol and diesel cars by 2025.
“One of the things we can hope for is that technological change comes along in the absence of any government policy,” he said.
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