Australia’s climate targets could go up in smoke amid planned increase in coal, gas use: report

Australia’s newly approved fossil fuel projects and government policies that permit pollution will make it hard for the country to meet its promises on climate change, new research has shown.

According to the Australia Institute, a Canberra think tank, the 116 new projects that have been government-approved to begin production before 2030 will emit 4.8 billion tonnes of emissions by then.

The combination of such a big increase in fossil fuel projects and mechanism rules which allow existing polluters to continue to emit mean “it will be very hard for Australia to meet its short- and long-term targets”, the institute’s chief economist Richard Denniss told This Week in Asia.

“While most countries are transitioning away from gas and coal, Australia, which is already the world’s third-biggest fossil fuel exporter, is still subsidising the expansion of its fossil fuel industry,” he said.

The research comes after Canberra gave the green light for new legislation late last year that would slash carbon emissions by 43 per cent by 2030 and to net zero by 2050, after the previous coalition government refused to do more to stop firms polluting the atmosphere.