Climate Analytics says that on current trends, emissions will race way past the Paris agreement target

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise, fuelled by the expansion in gas exports and production, according to new figures published by the Department of Environment and Energy.

The government quietly published its quarterly emissions figures on Friday afternoon, a public holiday in Victoria and the day of the release of the interim royal commission report into the banking sector.

The figures show that Australia’s policy vacuum on climate continues to drive emissions upward and further away from the country’s Paris targets.

The data show emissions climbed 1.3% in the year to March 2018.

The March quarter for which the data was published recorded a 0.3% increase.

Emissions were up across all sectors except electricity, which fell 4.3% in the year to March, and land use, which the government is continuing to record as a 5.2% carbon sink.

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Fugitive emissions in the energy sector rose 13.7% in the year to March.

The Climate Analytics director, Bill Hare, said the numbers showed Australia was still not on track to meet its Paris commitment to reduce emissions by between 26% and 28% by 2030 from its 2005 levels.

“While emissions from the national electricity market continue to decrease due to increasing renewable electricity, Australian emissions as a whole continue to increase,” he said.

“On present trends, with virtually no policies apart from the renewable energy target, which will expire in 2020 and not be replaced, emissions are set to gallop way past the Paris agreement target.”

He said the figures also showed the decline in per capita emissions was beginning to flatten out “at a time when this should be accelerating”.

Matt Drum, the managing director of NDEVR environmental, which tracks emissions and publishes its own quarterly reports months ahead of the government, said the absence of climate policy meant emissions were going up.

“All the figures show emissions are increasing because they’ve got no policy,” he said.

“What I’m really interested in is what policy is Labor going to reveal in the coming weeks?

“The current government have made it very clear they’re not interested in doing anything about emissions.”

The chief executive of the Australian Conservation Foundation, Kelly O’Shanassy, said it was “embarrassing” that climate pollution was continuing to rise in a wealthy country like Australia.

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“This latest pollution scorecard casts extreme doubt over the Morrison government’s claim that Australia will meet our 2030 emissions reduction targets ‘in a canter’ without strong new action.

“This latest result is also flattered by falling emissions from power generation, driven by the construction of solar and wind energy under our national renewable energy target.

“The Morrison government has declared it will not replace this target after 2020, meaning Australian climate pollution is at risk of growing even further.”

The environment minister, Melissa Price, did not respond to questions about the increase in emissions.

She said in a statement that emissions were currently 11.2% below 2005 levels.

The statement said the latest report on Australia’s national greenhouse gas inventory clearly showed the country was on track to beat its 2020 emissions target.