The federal government has released new data that shows its plan to lower climate pollution is delivering results, with industrial emissions now lower than during the pandemic.
Australia’s emissions for the year to December 2024 are estimated to be 27% below 2005 levels, similar to the 2023 results—reflecting the balance in 2024 between some positive trends and some challenges.
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Emissions fell across heavy industry, with industrial emissions now below 2021–2022 levels. This reflects technological improvements and investments that are helping deliver emissions reduction across sectors like chemicals and metals and stationary energy, reinforced by crucial policy changes like the reformed Safeguard Mechanism.
The trend is also encouraging in electricity. While on an annual basis, emissions rose in 2024—reflecting lower hydro generation and higher demand being met by fossil fuels—on a quarterly basis, it’s clear record levels of renewables are putting downward pressure on emissions.
Renewable energy reached a record 46% of the national energy grid in the December quarter 2024.
Meanwhile, transport emissions have continued to rebound from subdued COVID levels.
Minister for Climate Change and Energy Chris Bowen said while progress in key sectors was encouraging, the data shows there’s more to do to keep driving down emissions over the period to 2030.
“We’re turning around a decade of denial and delay, by setting serious climate targets in law and delivering the policy certainty to industry to bring down emissions,” he said.
“Industrial emissions are now lower than they were during COVID, even as the economy has recovered. We are on track to reach our 2030 targets, but we need to keep going and ensuring we’re delivering downwards pressure on emissions across the economy.
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“The Clean Energy Regulator’s data from the first year of the reformed Safeguard Mechanism published in April confirms how emissions from Australia’s largest industrial facilities are coming down and will continue to drive further reductions to meet its legislated targets.”
As well as the quarterly update, Australia has submitted its latest full National Inventory Report (NIR) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and Paris Agreement as part of its reporting obligations.
