Fact check: Have emissions risen under the Albanese government?
The Albanese government is being criticised by its opponents over Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions, with the Greens and Coalition claiming that carbon pollution has actually risen despite Labor’s commitment to deliver a 43 per cent cut on 2005 levels by the end of the decade.
Greens leader Adam Bandt said on Tuesday that “climate emissions are now higher under [Prime Minister] Anthony Albanese than they were when Scott Morrison left office”.
Emissions have flatlined since the government was elected, due in part to a bounce back from the Covid pandemic. Credit: .
Opposition energy spokesman Ted O’Brien said in November that “emissions [have] been going up, not down, since Labor came to office”.
This masthead has fact-checked that claim.
Australia’s greenhouse emissions crept upwards, slowly, over the past year, rising 0.3 per cent during the 12 months to September last year, according to preliminary calculations from the most recent data.
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Australia’s annual emissions levels have remained virtually unchanged since now and June 2022, when Scott Morrison left office and the government was elected.
In the year to September, the most recent data available, Australia generated 441 million tonnes of greenhouse gases, which was 1.2 million tonnes more than the previous 12 months. This equates to a rise of 0.3 per cent – a minor uptick given the variations over time.
However, the Albanese government has pledged to cut Australia’s emissions 43 per cent by 2030, and to achieve this goal by swapping clean energy for fossil fuels. To this end, it aims to raise the share of renewables to 82 per cent of the electricity grid by the end of the decade, which would see polluting coal-fired electricity almost gone by around 2035.
