Led up garden path by
Despite all the talking and hinting about a 2050 target for carbon-dioxide emissions, on Australia’s current course, net zero is unlikely to be achieved, if at all, before very late this century, explains
PRIME Minister Scott Morrison appears to favour a policy of net zero carbon dioxide emissions “as soon as possible, and preferably by 2050”.
His change in rhetoric is a step in the right direction, and may impress voters at the next election. However, when will the government’s present policies for cutting emissions achieve net zero?
First, let’s look at the government’s claim emissions have fallen by 20 per cent since 2005, as detailed in the latest National Greenhouse Gas Inventory Quarterly Update: March 2021, released August 31.
According to those data, we have gone from 624 million tonnes (Mt) of carbon dioxide (equivalent) per year in 2005 to 494 Mt at present — a reduction of 130 Mt per year in 15 years.
If we continue at that rate, we will get to net zero in 2080.
So Mr Morrison’s “as soon as possible” is 59 years away.
It is an optimistic estimate, because it does not factor in the contribution of the pandemic to the recent emissions downturn.
Looking at it a different way, if Australia meets our (Paris Agreement) 2030 target of 26 per cent less than 2005 emissions (currently put at 455 Mt per year in 2030), and continues on at that rate, we will hit net zero in 2109. Again, a little bit late. Clearly, the 2030 target is nowhere near on the way to net zero by 2050.
But the government claims to have a new approach: the Technology Investment Roadmap. So far, this roadmap appears to consist of two main documents, the “Technology Investment Roadmap discussion paper” and the “First Low Emissions Technology Statement 2020”, issued by the Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources. However, these documents do not mention a net zero target date.
So, we have to turn to yet another paper, Australia’s Emissions Projections 2020, issued by the department in December last year.
Projections 2020 predicts that if there is “strong uptake” of the Technology Investment Roadmap by industry and other parties, emissions will come down to 436 Mt per year by 2030, from the present level of 513 Mt per year (the department goes by financial years).
We can extrapolate from that to find the year we will get down to zero. It is 2087.
The point is, right now the government has no factual basis upon which to give the impression its policies will lead to net zero emissions anywhere near 2050. This is, of course, consistent with the fact that it does not officially have a “net zero by 2050” policy.
So far, the government is merely giving the appearance of favouring that goal. We should not say successive governments will not, or cannot, get to the net zero target by 2050, just that at present, we are not on track.
The other point about the “20 per cent since 2005” claim is that this reduction is largely due to changes in the ratio of land cleared to plantations established, as pointed out by Peter Boyer (Talking Point, August 17).
After 2015 the land use sector changed from being a net emitter of carbon dioxide to a net absorber of the gas.
Disappointingly, though, the extent of absorption by the sector is forecast to diminish, according to Projections 2020, from 18 Mt per year in 2020 to just 5 Mt per year in 2030.
Amazingly, land clearing is predicted to continue at present levels for the next decade — by 2030, “forest conversion to agriculture and other land” is projected to be responsible for 41 Mt of emissions per year (compared with 44 Mt in 2020).
By reducing land clearing — a low technology approach — governments could readily cut emissions by tens of Mt per year.
The other relevant point here is that 624 Mt in 2005 is just the latest estimate of emissions for that year. This estimate is constantly being revised, as are those for all years since 1990.
In recent years the figure for 2005 has increased, making it easier to claim larger reductions since that year, and at the same time increasing the 2030 target (which is 74 per cent of the 2005 number), making that target easier to achieve as well.
There is another document in store as part of the Technology Investment Roadmap: the Long Term Emissions Reduction Strategy, due to be released before the climate change COP26 conference in Glasgow in November.
This strategy will have to dramatically strengthen the existing policies and timelines if the government wants to go to Glasgow, and into the next election campaign, with any credibility at all in its talk about net zero emissions.