National Greenhouse Accounts released today show Australia's carbon pollution fell slightly during 2012, even though the economy continued to grow.
This was mainly due to lower greenhouse gas emissions from the electricity generation sector.
The Accounts show Australia's total greenhouse gas emissions declined by 0.2 per cent for the year to December 2012 compared to the previous year – a period which saw year on year growth in real GDP of 3.4 per cent.
Annual emissions for this period were 551.9 million tonnes (excluding land use emissions), down from 553.2 million tonnes in 2011.
For the major sectors covered by the carbon pricing mechanism – electricity, other stationary energy, fugitives, industrial process emissions and waste – emissions decreased by one per cent over the six months to December 2012 compared with the same period in 2011.
Carbon pollution from the electricity generation sector accounts for 36 per cent of Australia's total greenhouse gas emissions.
For the first two quarters of 2012-13, national emissions from this sector were around 14 million tonnes lower, on an annualised basis, compared with emissions for the same period in the previous year.
Australia has formally submitted the latest National Greenhouse Accounts to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), showing that Australia's carbon pollution levels are currently tracking at 105 per cent of their 1990 levels.
Australia's latest National Greenhouse Accounts include four reports:
Quarterly Update of Australia’s National Greenhouse Gas Inventory: December Quarter 2012
National Inventory Report 2011, (submission under the UNFCCC, Kyoto Protocol)
National Inventory by Economic Sector 2010-11
State and Territory Greenhouse Gas Inventories 2010-11
The reports are available through the Department of Industry, Innovation, Climate Change, Science, Research and Tertiary Education website at http://climatechange.gov.au/climate-change/emissions.aspx.
