Josh Frydenberg responds to Age Editorial

Australia's emissions

Josh Frydenberg.

Your editorial, "Dismal record on climate change" (19/1) was a misleading account of Australia's emission reduction performance. Our emissions today are the lowest on a per capita and GDP basis in 28years. 

Renewables investment is the highest on record, with the Clean Energy Council hailing an "unprecedented wave of investment”.

Absolute emissions in the last quarter came down in the electricity sector by 1.8per cent and across the economy by 0.6per cent, the biggest quarterly drop in the last four years.  The latest data indicates we'll overachieve our 2020 target by 294million tonnes, a 30per cent or 70million tonne improvement on the year prior. One million tonnes of carbon abatement is the equivalent to taking 300,000 cars off the road for a year.

Contrary to your claim, we do not need to count the 128million tonne surplus from the first Kyoto period to achieve our 2020 target; on the current numbers, we can achieve it without it. As for the 2030 target, the abatement task ahead of us has fallen 122million tonnes over the year and around 60per cent in the past two years.

Josh Frydenberg, Minister for the Environment and Energy 

Carbon Emissions and Economic Growth: Production-based versus Consumption-based Evidence on Decoupling

The estimates for per capita CO2 emissions are truly comprehensive as these include all carbon emissions embodied in international trade and global commodity chains.

Even if we find evidence suggesting a decoupling of production-based CO2 emissions and growth, consumption- based CO2 emissions are monotonically increasing with per capita GDP.

We draw out the implications of these findings for climate policy and binding emission reduction obligations.

Read The Institute for New Economic Thinking story and download the report - “Carbon Emissions and Economic Growth: Production-based versus Consumption-based Evidence onDecoupling.”