Is Australia's climate change action enough to meet our 2030 emissions target?

Updated

Are Australia's efforts to curb global warming enough to meet our Paris target?

Australia has a carbon problem. We have one of the most carbon-intensive economies in the developed world.

In 2016, Australia joined more than 170 countries in signing the Paris Agreement — a global deal that seeks to combat climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Australia promised to reduce its emissions by 26 to 28 per cent from 2005 levels by 2030. Instead, since 2015 our emissions have been going up year on year.

The Government's own projections show Australia is not on track to meet its current Paris target.

Australia's current Paris target is only a starting point — the Paris Agreement expects that in 2020, countries will come back with more ambitious pledges.

Most of our emissions come from four areas of the economy: transport, industry, agriculture and electricity.

Four Corners investigates why our emissions keep rising and the challenges we face in turning things around.

Transport

Transport makes up about 19 per cent of Australia's total emissions and they've been rising steadily for decades.

Rohan Lund, the CEO of motoring body NRMA, says our love for big gas guzzlers is partly responsible. Many of our top-selling cars last year were SUVs or utes.

"We're a big country, we've a big driving culture and particularly in outer suburban areas in the regions we like big cars," he said.

One way to get less carbon-intensive cars on our roads would be to introduce a fuel efficiency standard.

Australia is one of the only countries in the developed world that doesn't have one. The result is that our cars are, on average, less fuel efficient than those in Europe and the US.

That standard would essentially force manufacturers to sell a larger number of more efficient cars, but it's become a politically controversial idea in Australia. The Turnbull Government floated the idea in 2017 but abandoned it after pushback from within the party.

Labor says it will introduce a fuel efficiency standard if it wins the next federal election.

Time to phase out gas guzzlers?

Other countries like the UK and France are taking a more interventionist approach and have announced plans to ban the sale of new petrol and diesel cars as early as 2040.

The NRMA says we should do the same.

"The Australian market has got a bit of catching up to do from where we are at the moment, so if anything, our targets here need to be a bit more aggressive than what we're seeing in other markets," Mr Lund said.

"I would expect to start seeing targets that are between 2025, 2030 for banning [the sale of new] petrol-driven cars in this country."

Australia is also a global laggard when it comes to electric vehicle uptake. There are only 7,300 on our roads and according to industry they make up about 0.2 per cent of annual new car sales.

The Federal Government recently announced a plan to develop a national electric vehicle strategy, but the Electric Vehicle Council says the idea is unclear and lacks urgency.

Industry

Industry makes up the second largest portion of our emissions — around 30 per cent — and they are rising.

This sector includes the greenhouse gases that come mainly from manufacturing and extracting and processing resources**.

One of the biggest reasons for the rise is our liquid natural gas exports. Australia is now the world's biggest LNG exporter.

When gas is burned for energy it is cleaner than coal — which is good news for the countries that buy our gas — but extracting and processing it here is pushing up Australia's emissions.

Baselines and big polluters

There is also no Government incentive for big polluters to reduce their emissions.

Right now, under the Abbott-era Direct Action Plan, the Government sets a limit on how much each facility can emit and if facilities breach that cap — known as a baseline — they can be penalised.

Hugh Grossman, executive director of carbon market analysis firm RepuTex, says that since the policy was established, the Government has allowed big polluters to increase their baselines.

"Just under a third of all facilities have increased their baselines beyond where they began initially," he said.

Since Direct Action started, emissions from the big polluters covered by this policy have gone up by 12 per cent and are expected to rise by 19 per cent by 2030, according to RepuTex.

Last month the Government changed the rules, making it even easier for all big polluters to nominate their own baselines.

Carbon savings could be wiped out

There is another problem too. RepuTex modelling shows emissions from Australia's biggest polluters will wipe out all the reductions contracted to date by the Government's taxpayer-funded carbon reduction scheme — the Emissions Reduction Fund, or ERF.

So far more than $2 billion has been contracted by the fund for programs like tree-planting, avoided deforestation and waste-to-energy.

The ERF contracts issued to date are expected to deliver 193 million tonnes of carbon savings between 2015 and 2030. The projected cumulative growth in emissions from big polluters over the same period is 280 million tonnes, according to RepuTex.

The Government recently committed an extra $2 billion to the fund, but Mr Grossman said until industry is forced to reduce emissions, Australia will struggle to meet its Paris target.

"Industry emissions are Australia's Achilles' heel — you can't meet a 26 per cent reduction target by letting emissions increase 19 per cent in one sector," he said.

"Until you address that and better counteract that you won't be meeting an emission reduction target."

Agriculture

Emissions from agriculture make up about 15 per cent of Australia's total emissions.

The drought has caused a decline in the cattle population, pushing emissions down recently but they're expected to rise over the next decade.

Methane from livestock is the biggest problem. Each day Australia's roughly 90 million sheep and cattle produce the potent greenhouse gas through burps and farts.

Dr Rob Kinley and other researchers at the national science agency, the CSIRO, are working on a solution.

At their research facility near Townsville, they've discovered that feeding cows a certain variety of seaweed reduces their methane emissions to almost zero.

"All the seaweeds were doing a little something, but this one was rather unbelievable," Dr Kinley said.

But farming the Asparagopsis seaweed in commercial quantities and getting it into the diets of pasture-fed animals are big challenges.

Dr Bill Hare, a climate scientist and policy analyst who has co-authored reports for the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, says there is no quick fix.

"The way I see agriculture as part of a global strategy to meet the Paris Agreement's goals is that slow and steady is better in agriculture - whether it's in Australia or in India," he said.

"We need to look at measures that move forward slowly, that bring the farming community along, and that produce lasting and sustainable solutions".

Electricity

Electricity accounts for the largest portion of our emissions — about 34 per cent — and they've been falling due to a decrease in gas and coal-fired power, as well as a boom in renewables.

Despite the opportunities offered by renewables, coal still makes up nearly two thirds of our energy mix.

Many of Australia's coal-fired power stations are old and due to close in coming decades, but replacing coal with renewables isn't straightforward. To allow more renewable power into the grid, Australia's transmission network needs to be upgraded.

Paul Italiano, the CEO of network operator TransGrid, said in New South Wales, changes in the network are not keeping pace with the growth of new renewables.

"The biggest challenge we're facing at the moment is the number of applications to join the grid exceeds the capacity of the grid to meet those applications," he said.

"If we look at New South Wales, we have 14,000 megawatts of capacity being asked to join the system. We have about 2,000 megawatts that we can accommodate. So, it's about seven times oversubscribed."

Snowy 2.0: One big battery

The second challenge is getting power when the wind doesn't blow and the sun doesn't shine.

The Federal Government recently announced funding for the Snowy 2.0 hydro scheme, which will act like a big battery to feed the grid when renewables are not producing enough power.

But to get the biggest emissions reductions benefit from Snowy 2.0, more renewable power needs to come online.

The project's future is not certain if there is a change of government at the next federal election. So far Labor has only committed to it in principle.

Professor Frank Jotzo, director of the Centre for Climate Economics and Policy at the Australian National University, said Australia could make a big dent in its emissions through the electricity sector but in the long run, other areas of the economy will have to change too.

"We cannot just rely on cutting emissions in the one-third of the emissions budget and letting the two-thirds of the emissions budget keep growing. That is not a recipe for long-term success and that is not a recipe for achieving that 2030 target of whatever magnitude," he said.

What's the end game?

The Department of Environment and Energy projections released in December show Australia is not on track to meet its current target.

The Government disagrees, insisting it is on track to meet the Paris target "in a canter".

Regardless, even the current targets pledged by countries in the Paris Agreement will not be enough to curb potentially dangerous global warming. Under these targets, the world is still on track to warm by around three degrees.

The Paris Agreement expects countries to increase their current targets so it can meet its goal of keeping global warming well below two degrees.

Dr Hare warns that anything more than that could be dire.

"By the time we get to three degrees warming I think we'll have a continent that is ecologically transformed," he said.

"Summers will be a time to fear. We've seen over the last summer is just the beginning of that. We're only at one degree warming now. Think three degrees, you think a lot more."

About the data

All of the data in the graphs presented in this report is sourced from the Federal Government's Department of the Environment and Energy, compiled with the assistance of Climate Analytics.

*LULUCF refers to Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry.

**For the Industry sector, we have combined emissions from direct combustion, industrial processes and product use, and fugitive emissions as described by the Department of Environment and Energy in its report titled Australia's emissions projections 2018.

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Topics: climate-change, environment, government-and-politics, alternative-energy, energy, solar-energy, hydro-energy, wind-energy, mining-environmental-issues, environmental-technology, computers-and-technology, rural, beef-cattle, world-politics, greenhouse-gas, australia

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