Albanese’s climate report card: “D for delivery” as progress stalls

With the next federal election just months away and climate policies yet again set to weigh heavily on voters’ minds, analysis of the Albanese government’s track record in cutting emissions shows progress has all but stalled.

In two-and-a-half years in power, the Albanese government has achieved a slower rate of emissions reduction than those of preceding Coalition governments.

Late last week, the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (DCCEEW) published the latest quarterly update to Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions inventory.

This will almost certainly be the last update published before the next federal election. It provides government figures for emissions through to the end of September 2024, as well as preliminary estimates through to the end of the 2024 year.

The update allows us to take stock of the progress made by the Albanese government in delivering real-world reductions to Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions.

Upon winning government in May 2022, the Labor government re-confirmed Australia’s commitment to reaching net zero emissions by 2050 and strengthened Australia’s 2030 target to a 43 per cent drop from 2005 levels. Both of these targets were enshrined in the new Climate Change Act.

But, according to the latest emissions data, in the two-and-a-half years since that 2022 election, the Albanese government succeeded in reducing Australia’s emissions by just 3.1 million tonnes.

This represents a 0.7 per cent reduction in Australia’s total emissions, or just a 0.6 per cent drop if emissions from land use and forestry are excluded (their inclusion in Australia’s emissions inventory has always been contentious).

Source: DCCEEW

That is an average annual reduction of just 1.24 million tonnes per year under the Albanese government. To put that into perspective, it would take between 355 and 426 years for Australia to reach zero emissions, depending on which accounting method you use.

With 25 years between now and 2050, Australia needs to achieve an average annual cut of at least 17.4 million tonnes to get to zero emissions. That would require cutting emissions at a rate 14-times faster than has been achieved under the Albanese government.

To say it falls short of the scale of response needed in the face of the climate crisis, would be an understatement.

While Labor argues we simply need to ‘stay the course’ and reducing Australia’s emissions is akin to ‘turning a ship’ – it remains true that the Albanese government isn’t taking all reasonable efforts to reduce Australia’s emissions. In fact, the Albanese government has worked to make the task harder, by approving new coal and gas projects.

Missed opportunities

The emissions data allows us to dig deeper into Australia’s sources of emissions and identify which areas of the economy are failing to deliver the necessary reductions in emissions.

Concerningly, progress in the sector which has been the workhorse for reducing Australia’s emissions – the electricity sector – has effectively stagnated under the Albanese government. Emissions from the electricity sector have fallen just 2.4 per cent during the term of the Albanese government – a total reduction of just 3.8 million tonnes. Critically, electricity emissions have increased in each of the last four quarters – that is across the whole of 2024.

DCCEEW attributes this increase to ‘unusual weather patterns’, which has led to lower output from wind and hydro generators and an increase in overall demand that was met by increased coal and gas generation. But it is a worrying trend in a sector that should be delivering deeper and faster cuts to emissions. The last time the electricity sector saw sustained increases in emissions was under the Abbott government.

The sector that has seen the most notable increases in emissions under the Albanese government is the transport sector. Emissions have increased by 10.9 per cent over the last two-and-a-half years, reflecting a continued ‘return to normal’ following the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to DCCEEW’s data, emissions from domestic aviation reached their “highest level on record in the year to September 2024, 16.2% higher than they were pre-COVID”.

Vehicle emissions have almost recovered to pre-pandemic levels, pushed higher by Australia’s growing preference for larger vehicles, particularly SUVs. Diesel consumption has surged, reflecting the increased use of larger vehicles for both freight and personal transport.

Negligible reductions have been achieved across Australia’s other economic sectors since the last election, with no sector keeping pace with the economy-wide reductions necessary for reaching zero emissions by 2050.

This trend highlights the opportunities Australia has squandered to implement systemic changes needed for lasting emissions reductions that the severity of the climate crisis dictates.

While the Albanese government set more ambitious climate targets compared to the preceding Coalition governments, the real-world emissions reductions needed to achieve those targets will not happen in isolation from meaningful policy. Targets alone do not translate to action, as was called out by the UNEP in its 2024 Emissions Gap Report, which went so far as suggesting Australia’s sluggish climate policies put it at risk of missing its 2030 emissions reduction target.

The hard truth for the Albanese government is that it has achieved slower emissions reductions compared to those of the prior Turnbull and Morrison governments, even as the climate crisis has grown more urgent.

Responding to the data, Australian Greens leader Adam Bandt said it showed that neither of the major parties could be trusted to deliver the necessary action to cut emissions.

“With emissions this high, Labor is blowing any chance of a safer climate and even their own weak climate goals are out of reach,” Bandt said.

“Labor’s continued approvals of new coal and gas means the country can’t cut emissions fast enough, and Peter Dutton would make pollution even worse. We can’t keep voting for the same two parties and expecting a different result.”

The outlook

In a media release on Friday, climate minister Chris Bowen said record levels of investment in renewable energy projects had been achieved and that Labor’s policies would see increased emissions reductions in future years.

“The Albanese Government’s plan is working – emissions are now lower than when the Coalition left office and renewable investment into our energy grid is at record levels,” Bowen said.

“Collectively, Australia must stay the course and continue to lift our efforts to increase these reductions to 2030 and beyond.”

According to the latest Quarterly Carbon Market Report published by the Clean Energy Regulator, emissions decline under the Renewable Energy Target and the Safeguard Mechanism are expected to accelerate in 2025. The regulator forecasts the total reductions generated by the two schemes to increase to between 72 and 117 million tonnes (compared to the periods prior to their implementation).

Source: Clean Energy Regulator Quarterly Carbon Market Report

But these estimates do not necessarily translate into reductions to Australia’s emissions bottom line – the Regulator’s estimates are relative to counterfactual scenarios. For example, as the latest emissions inventory data show, emissions from the electricity sector increased in 2024 despite output from renewable energy generators increasing throughout the year.

Worse still – much of the projected emissions reductions under the schemes administered by the Regulator are dependent on carbon offsetting methodologies that continue to attract immense scrutiny.

Even worse still – and this is one of the fundamental failures of the first term of the Albanese government – Australia has continued to greenlight new coal and gas developments. When it comes to the metaphorical bathtub, Australia is continuing to open the tap even more, while the bathtub is already overflowing.

Comment on current US events

It would be remiss to be writing about climate policy from the United States without acknowledging the rapidly evolving and deeply concerning developments here.

As I type, the Trump Administration is moving to fire around 800 employees from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). It is the latest move in a series that have seen critical climate risk data removed from government websites, a reversal of US government support for clean energy technologies and a second withdrawal of the United States from the Paris Agreement.

The dismantling of NOAA, which serves as a vital source of information and data on the Earth’s climate and weather systems, is alarming. An ineffective public weather service will simply leave the United States, and its neighbours, blind and vulnerable to future extreme weather events. No matter what your views on climate change, gutting NOAA is reckless.

We are well and truly in a new and unprecedented era of American recalcitrance against climate action that could have truly global consequences. It will be critical for groups in the US and abroad to resist the efforts of Trump and Musk to derail global climate action, just as it will be necessary for Australian voters to demand political leaders adopt meaningful climate policies at the next federal election.

This article was originally published on Tempests & Terawatts. Republished here with permission. Read the original version here.