Fossil fuel production has driven a staggering rise in Queensland’s energy emissions

Between 2005 and 2022, emissions across Queensland’s “energy industries” increased by 52%. That’s according to the recently published State of the Environment Report 2024, and it’s a staggering statistic, especially when you consider what’s been happening across the energy sector. 

In 2024, Queensland’s thermal electricity generation dropped to its lowest level since 2002. In fact, over this same period between 2005 and 2022 while energy industry emissions were growing, thermal generation fell by over 13%, from 56,278 GWh to just 48,710 GWh.

That’s because Queensland has been rapidly shifting away from fossil fuels in its electricity mix over the last decade. Back in 2015, coal and gas provided 92% of Queensland’s power, generating close to 58,000 GWh per year.

In 2024, that had fallen under 48,000 GWh. At the same time, renewable electricity generation has surged from just over 1,000 GWh in 2014 to nearly 19,000 GWh last year. Last year they did that at about half the average cost per megawatt hour (MWh) as fossil fuels.

So what’s actually driving this alarming rise in greenhouse gas emissions from the state’s “energy industries”? 

The answer lies not in the power stations that supply Queensland homes, but in the vast industrial operations extracting and exporting fossil fuels.

Since 2010, the state has drilled over 12,000 coal seam gas (CSG) wells, fueling its LNG export industry. This certainly supports the state’s trade balance, but it doesn’t do much for jobs.

The CSG industry employs around 6,500 people per year, which is slightly more than the roughly 6,200 florists across Queensland, or the 6,100 driving instructors helping keep our roads a little safer. 

The coal sector has also seen significant expansion over this period. There are now 60 coal mines operating across the state (up from 48 in 2010). While total coal production is down from its pre-COVID highs, production remains close to 10% higher than it was in the early 2010s.

Just like the state’s gas industry, very little of this powers the state. Of the 222 million tonnes of coal produced across the state last year, close to 87% of it was exported internationally. However, the pollution from extraction, processing, refining and rail transport remains here.

And the sector’s climate impact may be far greater than we currently estimate. Last week, two researchers at the University of Queensland published a study analysing methane emissions from an abandoned coal borehole.

They found that the borehole, which is likely not reported, was in fact releasing 26.9 kg of methane every hour. That means that this little hole was causing about the same climate impacts every 4 hours, as driving your petrol-guzzling car for a year.

According to a 2014 background review commissioned by the Department of Environment, there may be 130,000 legacy coal exploration boreholes just like this one across the state.

While it’s unlikely they’re all emitting at a similar scale, there is currently no clarity as to how many of these might have ever been closed, nor how many more have been abandoned in the last decade of exploration and expansion.

Now, these energy industries certainly aren’t the only growth sectors in the economy over the last two decades. Between 2005 and 2022, emissions from industrial processes (including manufacturing) also rose by 13.4%.

Yet the manufacturing sector alone employs 181,000 Queenslanders, making up over 6% of the state’s workforce, and this is spread across regional areas.

It’s a growth sector that can also benefit greatly from the expansion of renewable energy across the state, driving emissions down, and competing in international markets increasingly looking at carbon-border adjustments including not just the EU but Japan and China as well.

But just as Queensland should be doubling down on this opportunity, it’s pulling back. Instead of removing roadblocks and ramping up community benefit opportunities, it’s proactively bringing them to a halt. 

The recent reversal of the $1 billion Moonlight Range Wind Farm and the 1.2 GW Forest Wind project have sent a shiver down the spine of the country’s renewables industry.

And now, under the guise of improving “community consultation” and “benefit sharing”, the state risks pressing pause on an industry that is not only ready to invest in regional communities, but would do so in a manner that actively increases productivity and value-adds across the state’s regional industries.

After a decade of progress on clean energy, the brakes aren’t just being slammed on, but the royalty red-carpet is being rolled out for foreign investors seeking to expand coal mines that have been called out by their own workers. 

If Queensland is serious about its regional development, it needs to rethink how it imagines community benefit; not just for wind farms, but across the entire economy.

Royalty reprieves will cost the state millions, while regulatory over-reach could hold back billions in future-proofing investments that will add value right across the economy. That’s not just bad climate policy. It’s bad economic policy too.

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