FactCheck: did carbon emissions fall faster before the carbon price?

The Conversation

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To find out if the carbon price worked, you have to look at the electricity sector. Paul Hocksenar/Flickr, CC BY-NC-SA

 

“Emissions fell by six times the rate in the five years before the carbon tax than they did under the carbon tax.” – Environment minister Greg Hunt, The Guardian, January 17, 2015.

Australia’s total greenhouse emissions have been declining since 2007, the year the Rudd Labor Government was elected.

According to data from Australia’s National Greenhouse Gas Inventory, emissions fell, with fluctuations, from 551 million tonnes (Mt) to 546.2 Mt (excluding emissions from forestry) between 2007 and June 2012 – the five years before the carbon “tax” was introduced. This is a drop of 4.8 Mt.

A further decline of 3.6 Mt (from 546.2 Mt to 542.6 Mt) occurred from July 2012, when the carbon price came into force, through to June 2014. So the yearly rate of decline appears to have been greater during these final two years.

Prima facie, therefore, Minister Hunt’s assertion is incorrect if forestry and land use-related emissions are removed (these activities are not directly subject to the carbon price and its influence).

What’s causing emissions to fall?

Aggregated figures provide no insight into the underlying contributions to change in the rate of emissions decline.

Australia’s greenhouse emissions come from several economic sectors, including energy (including electricity production, and emissions arising from the production of other forms of energy, such as the production of coal and liquefied natural gas), transport, agriculture, and industrial processes.

By far the largest contributor to Australia’s emissions is the stationary energy sector (electricity production), which contributed some 33% of total emissions in the year to June 2014.

Changes in emissions from energy production and from transport, and a shift in the sources of energy used for electricity generation, have played the major role in the change in Australia’s aggregate emissions.

During the five years after 2007, emissions from stationary energy declined because of a fall in demand for electricity and a shift in the sources of electricity generation. The decline in emissions from this sector increased from 3.5 Mt in the year to 2011-12 to 6.5 Mt in the year the carbon price was introduced (2012-13). The decline then grew even more, with emissions dropping by 7.6 Mt, the largest annual drop to date, in the following year (2013-14).

 

This strongly suggests that the carbon price had a direct influence on cutting emissions.

Coal falling, renewables rising

The change in electricity demand may also have been influenced by a contraction in manufacturing activity in response to the effects of the rising Australian dollar.

There was also a significant increase in electricity drawn from renewable sources (particularly solar and wind) and a decline in the cost of its production. Rising electricity prices associated with infrastructural investment by electricity distributors, and then the scare campaign about further electricity price increases associated with emissions trading, also encouraged anticipatory private investment in solar power, and industrial investment in wind power generation. These investments were undertaken and in many cases came online before the carbon price was established in July 2012. The easing of the Millenium drought in 2010 revived the use of hydropower.

In all, the dominance and use of fossil fuels (black and brown coal) for power generation fell from their peak in 2008-09.

However this declining trend in emissions from electricity production was offset by an increase in annual emissions associated with the production of gas and coal for exports (from 39 Mt to 45.2 Mt), and a jump in annual emissions from transport (from 84.6 Mt to 92.1 Mt) over the period 2008-09 to 2013-14.

Verdict

Overall, the promise of an emissions trading scheme and then Australia’s short-lived national carbon price seem to have had a complex but strong and positive influence on Australia’s emissions trajectory that both predates the implementation of price itself and nestles among a range of other factors which are yet to be fully evaluated.

In conclusion, Minister Hunt’s suggestion that the carbon price had little effect on the rate of emissions reduction seems to be incorrect.


Review – Mike Sandiford

The analysis appears to be supported by the data.

With the minister prone to calling the carbon tax an electricity tax, the electricity sector is the sector to examine. The government’s National Greenhouse Gas Inventory data show electricity emissions averaged 50.8 Mt per quarter in the five years to mid-2012, almost 5 million tonnes more than during the two years of the carbon tax.

During the five years to mid 2012, emissions declined at an average annual rate of 0.56%. In the two years of the carbon tax, emissions declined at 5%, some nine times faster than during the preceding five years, as you can see in the following charts.

Electricity sector emissions by quarter from the Government’s National Greenhouse Accounts “Quarterly Update of Australia’s National Greenhouse Gas Inventory: June 2014”. Blue lines show averages for the periods mid 2002 to mid 2007, mid 2007 to mid 2012 and mid 2012 to mid 2014. Emissions are expressed as totals and as percentage changes over the year by quarter.
Mike Sandiford

Have you ever seen a “fact” that doesn’t look quite right? The Conversation’s FactCheck asks academic experts to test claims and see how true they really are. We then ask a second academic to review an anonymous copy of the article.

You can request a check at [email protected]. Please include the statement you would like us to check, the date it was made, and a link if possible.

Source: The Conversation

Comments

5 responses to “FactCheck: did carbon emissions fall faster before the carbon price?”

  1. Keith Avatar
    Keith

    Greg Hunt is just showing that the LNP plans to be consistent in 2015 by continuing the practice of playing with the truth. Disappointing but not surprising.

  2. Marcelo Avatar
    Marcelo

    I now automatically assume any and all statements from members of the LNP to be false unless proven otherwise.

  3. john Avatar
    john

    Newspeak is the new truth.
    Never let the facts cloud your argument.
    Minister statement in any government take it with a grain of salt.
    Minister in Qld just said ” electricity prices will fall $570 with privatisation, according to a study by some accounting firm”
    I will take this with a huge bucket load of salt.

  4. Chris Fraser Avatar
    Chris Fraser

    I felt that Mr Hunt’s comments were a garbled mess. Almost as if he fears getting caught out uttering the most astronomical BS on radio. The fact that results can be cherrypicked is not a surprise, choosing to be frank with the subject matter would be a surprise.For the rest of his Ministership, all of Mr Hunt’s comments should be attached to a good explainer like this.

  5. Richard Koser Avatar
    Richard Koser

    “Where are your figures?” should be a key question for all politicians uttering statements like this. Joe Hockey’s latest claim that Australians pay half their income has been shot down repeatedly but if someone had asked the Treasurer “where did you get those figures from?” it might have made him less likely to repeat such tosh.

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