Queensland’s Emissions Still Rising Under Labor

A couple of weeks ago the federal government released its latest state and territory greenhouse gas inventories, which covered 2019. As we are now in the seventh year of this government, I thought it was worth looking at their record.

Since 2014 Queensland carbon emissions have actually increased by three per cent, but in that time our emissions from energy generation have increased by 20 per cent. While Australia has dropped our per capita emissions by over 10 per cent in that period, Queensland has only dropped by just over four per cent. We have one-fifth of the population of Australia yet we are producing one-third of the emissions. Our state emits more greenhouse gases than any other jurisdiction in our nation, with over 164 million tonnes a year. Over the last 15 years since 2005 they have only decreased 13.7 per cent. That is not even half way towards the government’s 2030 target. Comparatively, New South Wales has decreased 17.2 per cent; Victoria, 24.8 per cent; Western Australia, 20.8 per cent; South Australia, 32.9 per cent; and Tasmania, a massive 108.7 per cent.

We have some of the worst waste and recycling rates nationally too—and I talked before about FOGO—because we are the last state to get serious about organic waste. We are the last state to sign up to the Recycling Modernisation Fund, with other states already getting access to hundreds of millions of dollars to improve their waste infrastructure. The real area for action, however, is energy and our plan for a transition is clearly inadequate. Since 2005 emissions from our energy sector have actually risen by 27 per cent. We need a genuine, realistic and achievable plan for transition, because at the moment we are at around 20 per cent renewable generation. Again, that is not even half way to the government’s 2030 target.

Outcomes are lacking, but plans to achieve outcomes certainly are not. In 2016 the government released the Advancing climate action in Queensland: making the transition to a low carbon future discussion paper and Carbon pollution projections: Queensland’s baseline greenhouse gas emissions to 2030. The Queensland Climate Adaptation Direction Statements 2017 saw the Queensland Climate Transition Strategy and the Queensland Climate Adaptation Strategy. Last year, with the election approaching the government thought it needed to look like it was doing more, so they committed to a Climate Action Plan 2020-2030. There is no deadline for this to be completed, but it did come with a guarantee that, for once, no consultants would be involved in its production.

Despite all of these plans and strategies we are missing one: how we are going to transition and expand our energy generation. Other states like New South Wales are leaving us behind in this regard. The reality is that Queensland is not leading the pack when it comes to renewables or reducing our emissions. In fact, we are practically dead last.