'Disastrous': Australia's Carbon Emissions Jump As Coal-Fired Power Ramps Up

Fairfax - Peter Hannam

Australia's greenhouse gas pollution jumped in 2015-16 as coal use continued to rise after the scrapping of the carbon price, making it harder to meet its emissions targets.
Overall emissions are up 3.4 per cent compared with 2014-15 and up 7.5 per cent since the Abbott government eliminated the carbon price in June 2014, the Australian Conservation Foundation said, citing new data released under the National Greenhouse & Energy Reporting Scheme.

La Trobe Valley's Loy Yang coal-fired power station is among the big polluters. Photo: Paul Harris

The data suggests that Australia's emissions are set to be higher at the end of the decade than they were in 2000, although credits earned in interim years will enable the country to meet its 2020 goals. The 2030 goal of cutting pollution at least 26 per cent on 2005-levels will be harder to meet the longer annual emissions keep rising.
Hugh Saddler, an honorary associate professor at the Australian National University, said total grid-connected generation – which excludes power plants at mines or other standalone sites – rose 3.3 per cent during 2015-16, and emissions gained 1.7 per cent.
"Although there was a modest improvement in emissions intensity – undoubtedly because of more wind generation driven by the large-scale Renewable Energy Target – it was not enough to offset the relatively larger increase in demand, as consequently total emissions went up," Dr Saddler said.
So-called scope 1 and scope 2 emissions from Australia's electricity sector rose by 2.6 per cent on 2014-15 levels and are up 5 per cent since the carbon tax ended, the conservation foundation said.
"This latest data provides more evidence Turnbull government policies that are supposedly designed to cut Australia's climate pollution are simply not doing the job," Kelly O'Shanassy, ACF's chief executive, said.
"Instead of acknowledging global warming as a national crisis that demands immediate, serious action, the federal government is considering giving Adani a $1 billion loan for a coal-carting railway line [in Queenland] and wants the Clean Energy Finance Corporation to fund new coal-fired power stations," she said.

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In NSW, emissions from the state's five coal-fired power stations rose 7 per cent in the year, or 3 million tonnes, to 49 million.
"The NSW government last November committed to zero carbon emissions by 2050, but they don't have a plan to get us there," Brad Smith, the NSW Nature Conservation Council's senior energy and climate campaigner, said. "This is a disastrous result caused by the failure of leadership from state and federal governments."
Josh Frydenberg, the federal environment and energy minister, said Australia is on target to beat the 2020 goals by 224 million tonnes, and that more than half of the increased emissions in the past year came from the expansion of LNG production, while agriculture-related emissions fell 3.4 per cent.
"Significant progress has also been made in reaching our 2030 target under the Paris Agreement with an improvement of more than 50 per cent since the last projections," he said. "In fact, Australia's emissions per capita and emissions per unit of GDP are now at their lowest level in 27 years."
However, Mark Butler, Labor's climate spokesman, said the data showed the government's "energy crisis is failing on all three metrics: price, reliability and pollution".
Adam Bandt, the Greens' climate spokesman, said Prime Minister Turnbull was fast becoming a "king of pollution" by "pandering to the climate change-denying Trumps of his party".

Links

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