This is basically a summary of:
Emissions reduction targets and needs
- Labor has targets of reducing emissions to 43% beneath 2005 levels by 2030 and reaching net zero by 2050.
- Climate scientists say the cuts should be at least 50% by 2030, it would be better if they were 75%.
- The Coalition opposition wants to abandon all 2030 targets so emissions can increase freely. It hopes all necessary emissions reduction will happen between 2040 and 2050 because of 7 nuclear power stations. This is impossible without massive cuts in Australian energy use.
- The idea of a carbon budget calculates a ‘fair’ level of total GHGs that can be emitted for a country to avoid 1.5C or 2C of warming. The Climate Targets Panel,says Australia has a carbon budget of up to 10.1bn tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions between 2013 and 2050 to help keep heating below 2C.
- Scientists warn there will likely be a significant and devastating difference in the damage caused by the climate change produced by a heating of 1.5C and the heating produced by 2C.
At current rats of GHG emissions (2024), Australia will have consumed its carbon budget for 1.5C in less than 5 years.
And it will have consumed its carbon budget for 2.0C in about 11 years.
This is according to figures from the Commonwealth Department of Industry and Resources, Climate Change Authority, and Guardian Australia
Current Emissions Reduction
The currently claimed emissions reductions almost completely stem from land use change, which is fairly contentious and hard to measure. However, if those emissions are removed, then it looks as though the emissions reductions since 2005 are trivial.
The emissions from the Australian economy (including electricity, industry, transport, agriculture and waste) have decreased about 2.5% since 2005. This low level of reduction is not unexpected as the Coalition, has ruled over most of this period.
As well, the emissions produced by burning Australian Coal and Gas, overseas is not included in these counts. For example according to the Resources and Energy Quarterly, National Greenhouse Gas Inventories, Australian Energy Statistics, and the IPCC, Australian emissions from black coal are about 156.7 billion tonnes and emissions from Australian black coal sold overseas are 864.4 billion tonnes.
Consequences
2023 was a record-breaking year for average temperatures in Australia and the world, and 2024 has been hotter again, so far.
Global surface temperature of the sea has so far been hotter in 2024 than in 2023, which is the hottest year ever recorded.
In the past 18 months, the extent of sea ice (in millions of kilometres) in the Southern Ocean around Antarctica. have been well below anything previously recorded.
A Table of Australian events which probably were worsened by climate change (Stops at 2020, missing massive floods and further bushfires)
| Event | Type of Event | Location | Effect of climate change |
| Australian bushfires, 2019-20 | Wildfire | South-east Australia | More severe or more likely to occur |
| Queensland fire weather, 2018 | Wildfire | Queensland, Australia | More severe or more likely to occur |
| New South Wales hottest summer, 2017 | Heat | New South Wales, Southeastern Australia | More severe or more likely to occur |
| Northern Australia marine heatwave, 2016 | Oceans | Off Northern Australia | More severe or more likely to occur |
| Western Australia severe frosts, September 2016 | Cold | Western Australia | More severe or more likely to occur |
| Extratropical Australia wildfire risk, 2015-16 | Wildfire | Australia | More severe or more likely to occur |
| Record Australian heat event of October 2015 | Heat | Australia | More severe or more likely to occur |
| South of Australia “exceptional” air pressures, August 2014 | Atmosphere | Off Southern Australia | More severe or more likely to occur |
| Australia high temperatures, spring 2014 | Heat | Australia | More severe or more likely to occur |
| Australia heatwave, May 2014 | Heat | Australia | More severe or more likely to occur |
| Australia record summer temperatures, 2013 | Heat | Australia | More severe or more likely to occur |
| Australia & tropical Pacific warm anomalies, 2013 | Heat | Australia & far west Pacific | More severe or more likely to occur |
| Eastern Australia record heat | Heat | Eastern inland Australia | More severe or more likely to occur |
| Australia record hot September, 2013 | Heat | Australia | More severe or more likely to occur |
| Australia record temperatures, 2013 | Heat | Australia | More severe or more likely to occur |
| Australia hot summer, 2012-13 | Heat | Australia | More severe or more likely to occur |
| Fitzroy river flooding, 2010 | Rain & flooding | Queensland, Australia | Decrease, less severe or less likely to occur |
| Global temperatures and rainfall extremes, 1951-2005 | Heat | Europe, North America, Asia, Australia, and the Northern Hemisphere | More severe or more likely to occur |
| Australian “Millennium Drought”, mid-1990s to late 2000s | Drought | Australia | More severe or more likely to occur |
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