The Labor Government continues to approve new fossil fuel projects and subsidise others. A new report shows that by 2035, Australia’s global carbon footprint from fossil fuels will be about the same as it is today. Kim Wingerei with the story.
The Climate Analytics (CA) report published this week confirms that Australia has one of the world’s highest total per capita emissions for all greenhouse gases, double that of China and nine times bigger than India.
Australia emitted 1.7 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (GtCO2e) per year in 2023 and will continue to emit a similar amount every year until 2035, when the annual emission is expected to be 1.5 GtCO2e.
The main culprit is our fossil fuel exports. Fossil fuel burnt in Australia is responsible for ‘only’ 1% of global CO2 emissions, but taking fossil fuel export into account,
Australia contributed 4.5% of global of fossil fuel emissions in 2022.
Not good for a country with just over 0.3% of the world’s population. But much more concerning is that it is not changing any time soon, despite our lofty commitment to net zero by 2050.
Australia’s projected fossil fuel based Greenhouse emissions.
Fossil fuel production
According to the CA report, Close to 80% of Australia’s total fossil fuel CO2 footprint in 2022 was due to exported carbon. Australia is the third largest fossil fuel exporter in the world, after Russia and the US. In terms of total greenhouse gas footprint, Australia ranks second, however, due to our love of emission-intensive coal.
Australia accounted for just over half of global metallurgical (coking) coal exports at 52%, and 17% of global thermal coal exports.
It’s a similar story with gas (LNG), where our capacity for export has grown from 25.5 million tonnes per annum in 2012 to 62 million tonnes per annum by 2022, all due to new projects being approved by the previous government. That, at last, is abating, with the only new LNG project approved over the last couple of years being Tamboran in the Northern Territory.
However, already approved fracking projects continue to be allowed to expand, with the approval of new wells – 151 in Queensland alone. And since being elected in May 2022, the Albanese government has approved or extended nine new fossil fuel projects, not counting infrastructure such as gas pipelines.
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These approvals are all in direct contravention of the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) roadmap, which calls for a reduction in fossil fuel use by between 18 and 22% by 2030, and by 47 – 35% by 2035.
Climate Analytics estimate that by 2035 Australia’s export of fossil fuel
will add another 15 billion tonnes of CO2 to the world’s total emissions.
Exporting global warming
To achieve the by now illusory objective of minimising global temperature increase to 1.5%, “Indicators of Global Climate Change 2023,” has estimated that the world has a total ‘budget’ of 200 GtCO2e between now and 2035. Australia’s projected fossil fuel exports from 2024 to 2035 would consume around 7.5% of that and around 9.1% when including Australia’s domestic carbon burning.
The catch, of course, is that exports are not counted as part of ‘our’ footprint. What is, however, is the significant amount of fossil fuel used to power the liquefaction process required to create LNG for export. When excluding the oil & gas industry’s own use of fossil gas, domestic consumption is just 19% of the gas Australia produces.
In other words, reduced fossil fuel exports would also help reduce our domestic carbon footprint.
At the moment, the only types of carbon emissions that are abating in Australia are land use, changes in land use and forestry (LULUCF), masking the fact that emissions from other sectors remain largely unaffected.
Australia falling behind
While China’s emissions may have already peaked, and Germany, Norway and the UK are projected to reduce their fossil fuel exports in 2030, Australia not only remains among the top 15 fossil-based CO2 emitters per capita, but it has increased its emissions since 1990 by over 140%, one of only six of the 38 countries in the OECD to have done so.
Fossil fuel emissions per capita. Source: Wikipedia
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Kim Wingerei is a businessman turned writer and commentator. He is passionate about free speech, human rights, democracy and the politics of change. Originally from Norway, Kim has lived in Australia for 30 years. Author of ‘Why Democracy is Broken – A Blueprint for Change’.