Fifth of Australian major polluters 'significantly' exceed emissions target

Quantum Commodity Intelligence - A fifth of Australia's major emitters generated more greenhouse gas emissions than they had pledged under a voluntary scheme set up in 2016, according to an investigation by the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) published Thursday.

The Safeguard Mechanism set up under the Emissions Reduction Fund (ERF) is a voluntary scheme applying to facilities producing emissions in excess of 100,000 mt CO2e per year.

An emissions baseline is established by the regulator, which cannot be surpassed, and companies are encouraged to offset any extra emissions.

But a research report by the ACF and a team of Australian National University students found that a fifth of Australia's major coal, gas and oil facilities emit significantly more than originally estimated when they submitted their plans.

A third of projects emit more than estimated during the approval phase, the investigation also found.

"One of the greatest problems with the inaccuracies of estimated emissions is the information is used for the Environment Impact Statements (EIS) that currently inform Australia's national emissions targets," said ACF.

"It means Australia's projected emissions are based on inaccurate information and therefore any emission reduction targets are based on a gross underestimation of the amount of carbon actually entering the atmosphere."

The largest emissions surplus was Chevron's Gorgon gas project, which emitted 16 million mt more than anticipated.

Significant over-emitters tend to operate in the gas and coal mining sectors, said the report, with projects such as Origin's LNG pipeline, Anglo American's Grosvenor mine, Whitehaven's Maules Creek coal mine, Whitehaven's Narrabri underground coal mine and MACH Energy's Mount Pleasant coal mine all breaching their limits.

"It is worse than a do-nothing policy. It is achieving the exact opposite of what it was designed to achieve," the ACF's climate change program manager, Gavan McFadzean, said in August 2020 about the Safeguard Mechanism.

The report's publication is the culmination of 18 months of work and close examination of hundreds of projects by students, said the ACF.