Antinuclear

Australia’s debt to the world greater given our ‘real’ carbon emissions

New data revealing Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions are much higher than reported means pressure is on the Federal Government to go beyond current commitments toward global climate action, writes professor Jeremy Moss.

Independent Australia, 24 Nov 22, THE RECENT Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP27) meeting in Egypt must ultimately be judged a failure.

While the inclusion of loss and damage in the final deal was a step forward, we can’t ignore that after nearly 30 years of COP the world still can’t agree to phase out fossil fuels as part of the agreements. 

The 636 representatives of the fossil fuel industry who attended would be pleased with this outcome. Representatives from the fossil fuel industry outnumbered some countries’ delegates ten to one.

Australia’s Federal Government will claim it as a success. However, new data revealing Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions are much higher than reported means pressure is on to go well beyond current commitments.

Despite praise by U.S. envoy John Kerry on Australia’s climate “u-turn” for the Albanese Government’s commitment to a 43 per cent emission reduction target by 2030, after ten years of inaction, much more will be expected of Australia to play our part in preventing global climate breakdown.   

When we hear the Government talk up its climate credentials, we need to bear in mind new data released by ClimateTRACE this week which shows that Australia’s domestic emissions were likely to have been 620 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (Mt CO₂-e) in 2021 — a figure more than 20 per cent higher than we reported to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) of 488 Mt CO₂-e. 

Climate Justice Project describes the tracker thus: 

‘The new emissions tracker ClimateTRACE uses satellite monitoring of more than 70,000 sites worldwide to produce real-time, facility-level #globalemissions inventories. The tracker, produced by a non-profit coalition, was launched by former U.S. Vice President Al Gore at COP27 in Egypt.’

This discrepancy by Australia is equivalent to roughly twice the volume of emissions from the agriculture sector of 77 Mt CO₂-e.

Worse still is the continued contribution made by the fossil fuel export industry. Being one of the world’s largest suppliers of cheap tax-payer-subsidised fossil fuels is a major contribution to climate change.

No amount of “arms dealer defences” from governments and big corporations can mask the fact that supplying fossil fuels is a crucial part of the carbon equation and ought to be allocated some share of the blame.

In Australia’s case, the emissions from exported fossil fuels are double our domestic emissions and they have been rising steadily over the last five years. Those emissions are bigger than the emissions of the UK.   

So, where does this leave us? 

Firstly, we need to properly measure and account for all of our actual domestic emissions to combat our contribution………………………….more https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/australias-debt-to-the-world-greater-given-our-real-carbon-emissions,16997#.Y38CW-u8BQQ.twitter

November 25, 2022 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, climate change - global warming