A “rapid decarbonisation and expansion” of the energy sector is required to meet Australia’s emissions targets according to the Climate Change Authority’s independent analysis tracking the country’s progress on its current commitments.
Federal energy and climate minister Chris Bowen sought to emphasise the positive on Thursday when he delivered the national climate statement in parliament and tabled several reports outlining Australia’s efforts to transition away from fossil fuels.
With the headline takeaways flagged days in advance – without the underlying data – the content of Bowen’s speech was not surprising: In his telling, Australia’s emissions are falling, renewable energy capacity is growing and the country is on track to hit its 43 percent emissions reduction by 2030 targets.
Bowen sought to frame the government’s efforts to date as laying the foundation for changes to come, to push back against critics seeking to extend the life of coal, and to attack Opposition leader Peter Dutton over his suggestion Australia should embrace nuclear energy.
In recognition of the changes to be brought by the election of Donald Trump to the US Presidency and the expectation his government will tear up his country’s climate commitments, Bowen emphasised the need for Australia to “stay the course” on decarbonisation.
“Governments around the world change. There will be heightened global tensions and geopolitical repositioning,” Bowen said. “We must stay the course through the uncertainty of complex economic and security challenges because we have a window of time in which to act decisively.
“We must continue to act in our national interest – charting an Australian path in this global journey.”
But the scale of the challenge remains with the Climate Change Authority releasing its independent assessment of the country’s progress and finding “mixed results”, prompting calls for a “rapid decarbonisation” of the energy sector.
It found that emissions fell by 3 Mt CO2-e in 2023-2024, but will need to fall by an average of 15 Mt CO2-e each year for the next six years “starting now” to reach the country’s 2030 target.
Though CCA recognised that the Australian government had passed “significant new policies”, including the Capacity Investment Scheme, the reformed Safeguard Mechanism and the New Vehicle Efficiency standard, it warned that Australia’s emissions were not falling nearly fast enough.
Matt Kean, CCA chair, said these policies were helpful but it was important for the government to “nail their delivery” as “emissions need to fall faster to reach Australia’s 2030 target”.
“The Annual Progress Report flags that emissions are not yet falling across each sector of the Australian economy,” Kean said in a statement accompanying the report.
“Emissions are 28% lower than 2005 levels in total, with this fall having been driven almost entirely by reduced land clearing and new tree planting, together with the growth of renewable energy. Agriculture, built environment, resources, transport, industry and waste emissions combined are 13% above 2005 levels.”
The CCA analysis found “mixed progress” in emissions reductions across sectors, with small reductions in industry and waste, agriculture and land and built environment largely offset by increases in transport emissions which increased by two percent.
Emissions reductions from energy use in the last year remained stable, recording 145 Mt CO2-e in 2024, down from 146 Mt CO2-e in 2023 with the bulk of the reduction associated with land use which fell 14%.
Much of Australia’s emissions reduction once again relied on land use, land use change and forestry (LULUCF). These refer to calculations about the amount of carbon that can be removed from the air by trees, carbon and soil, either through not cutting down forests or regenerating the landscape.
Historically, Australia has over-relied on LULUCF figures as they can be presented in ways to obscure what is actually happening in the country’s emissions profile, and to hide a lack of meaningful, transformative change.
Removing LULUCF from gross historical emissions there had been very little change to Australia’s emissions profile over the last 20 years.
Source: Climate Change Authority 2024 Annual Progress Report
Though the CCA welcomed the federal Labor government’s policies, it warned that more needed to be done to bring renewables online faster as they would be “essential” for decarbonising Australia’s electricity grid as 90% of existing coal fired capacity is expected to be phased out by 2034.
To ensure renewable energy reaches 82% of the electricity market, the authority said Australia required 33 gigawatts of renewable generating capacity. Taking into account currently planned projects, the authority said there was an 8-gigawatt gap needed to hit the target.
The authority suggested this gap could be closed if state governments set up their own programs similar to the CIS.
Some of these decarbonisation efforts will receive a boost after the Albanese government struck a deal with the Greens to force through 27 bills in exchange for commitments to spend $500m on retrofitting social housing, no oil, gas or coal financing under its Made in Australia policy, and a promise to end the commercial financing of overseas fossil fuel projects.
Under the housing program, a quarter of all social homes in the country would be retrofit to receive air conditioning, shading, electric appliances, solar panels and batteries.
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