4 December, 2018

Evaluating Australia's climate policy action

Authors

Ursula Fuentes Hutfilter, Jasmin Cantzler, Fabio Sferra, Bill Hare, Gaurav Ganti, Matt Beer

Together with the Australian Conservation Foundation, we have been analysing Australia’s emissions profile and policies. The result is a set of informative, concise graphic factsheets outlining all you need to know about Australia’s overall economy and emissions in key sectors – industry, electricity and transport – and what can be done to reduce them.

The Australian Economy

  • Australia is far behind similar economies in terms of pollution per person and emission intensity of our economy.
australia_sclimatefacts-webgraphic1.png
  • Australia is projected to fall even further behind because unlike other nations Australia has no effective national policy to drive down greenhouse gas emissions and improve energy efficiency.
australia_sclimatefacts-webgraphic2.png
  • Australia is projected to increase its overall greenhouse gas emissions by 8.6% above 2005 levels by 2030, far away from the emission reductions Australia promised the world by 2030 (16-18% below 2005 levels after factoring out forests & land use change emissions).
australia_sclimatefacts-webgraphic4.png
  • Australia’s emissions have been climbing in almost every sector except electricity. Leaving out the uncertain LULUCF emissions, the only sustained period of emissions reduction was experienced while the carbon price was in operation from 2012 to 2014.
australia_sclimatefacts-webgraphic3.png
  • There are many actions Australia can take now to start cutting emissions and get on to a path towards a zero-emissions economy.
  • There are many good reasons to make the transition to a green, zero-emissions society, a society that works for people, the environment and the economy. Avoiding the multiple, interacting damaging and potentially catastrophic impacts of climate change is just one aspect; building the economy of the future is another.

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