Australia and Pacific

This COP is already being reflected on as one of the most difficult in the history of the negotiations. And the final text has not made it all worth it. So, what was agreed? And what does it mean for addressing the climate crisis and the work to come next year on the road to COP30 in Belém?

Our research found Australia’s coal and gas exports were responsible for 1.15 billion tonnes of CO₂ emissions in 2023. An additional 46 million tonnes of CO₂ were emitted domestically in the process of extracting, processing and distributing those fossil fuels purely for export. That takes the total to 1.2 billion tonnes of CO₂ attributable to fossil fuel exports.

"One of the key things about this whole problem is that the only way to solve it is that we need to rapidly reduce and phase out fossil fuels. That can’t wait a decade. We need to be making substantial reductions this decade," Bill Hare said in address to the Australia Institute’s Climate Integrity Summit on 20 March 2024.

The fossil gas industry is gearing up for a truly enormous new fracking project in the Northern Territory’s Beetaloo Basin that could undo all Australia's efforts to cut emissions.