Although offset by lower emissions from electricity, increases in greenhouse gas emissions from growing Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) exports have pushed Australia’s overall carbon pollution up by nearly one per cent in the year to September, 2018.
Despite a flurry of energy announcements by the conservative Liberal-National government in the lead-up to the coming May election to boost its climate policy credentials, the latest figures from the Department of Environment and Energy just released showed Australia has a way to go before starting to reduce its emissions.
Greenhouse gas emissions were up by 4.6 million tonnes, or 0.9 per cent, in the year to September 2018 to 536 million tonnes, according to the quarterly update of Australia’s National Greenhouse Gas Inventory.
The gains from big declines in emissions from the electricity sector of 3.2 per cent and agriculture, three per cent, were negated by the 5.8 per cent increase in mining and manufacturing, especially LNG exports, which were up 19.7 per cent, steel production, up 10 per cent, and aluminium production, up 5.5 per cent.
“Growth in LNG also strongly impacted fugitive emissions due to the flaring and venting of methane and carbon dioxide.
“An increase in 10 per cent in steel production in particular affected industrial process emissions,” the report said.
The energy sector was able to reduce its emissions because of a 12.3 per cent reduction in brown coal supply and a corresponding 14.2 per cent increase in supply from renewable energy.
The opposition Labor Party’s energy spokesman Mark Butler told the Australian Financial Review (AFR) newspaper the Liberal-National government was getting nowhere on reducing Australia’s carbon emissions.
“The government’s own date shows carbon pollution levels have been rising since the election of Tony Abbot as prime minister, and emissions will continue to rise all the way to 2030,” he told AFR.
The increase comes as the Liberal-National government has frantically switched gears to embrace “climate solutions” to global warming, as an election in which the issue looks set to play a major role looms in May.
The government has tipped $2 billion into former prime minister Tony Abbott’s Emissions Reduction Fund and pledged another $1.5 billion to the $4.5 billion Snowy Hydro expansion, a second interconnector from Tasmania to connect the island state’s vast hydro resources to the mainland and an energy efficiency fund.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison also gave strong backing to three Tasmanian pumped-hydro projects, which are yet to complete feasibility studies.
However, the latest emissions data provided little support for the government’s claim that Australia is on track to meet its United Nations sponsored Paris Agreement target of a 26-28 per cent reduction in admission “in a canter”, although emissions for the September quarter were flat on a seasonally adjusted, “weather normalised” trend basis and down 1.4 per cent on an actual basis.
Australian Greens party MP and the party’s energy spokesman Adam Bandt told AFR only putting a price on carbon would force big polluters to change their behaviour.
“These figures confirm that no matter how much money Scott Morrison throws into dodgy emissions funds, pollution will keep going up until polluters are once more forced to pay for their emissions through a carbon price,” Mr Bandt said.
“This latest data shows that while current investment in renewable energy has had some impact, it’s not enough to counteract increases in emissions across most of the economy, because corporations can pollute without penalty.”
Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) economist Matt Rose said the new figures confirmed that Australia’s current emissions trajectory was not consistent with the Paris Agreement commitment to limit global warming to well below two degrees.
