Every three months two all-encompassing surveys are released that track how Australia is going. One we know exactly when it will be released (next Wednesday at 11.30am), the other we know vaguely when but often it comes out on a Friday afternoon with little fanfare and no warning. One, on GDP, gets reported widely, the other, on greenhouse gas emissions, is mostly ignored.
Coming after the intergenerational report announced last week that rising temperatures driven by greenhouse gas emissions would likely cost the economy between $135bn and $423bn in today’s dollars, you might hope that the quarterly emissions data might get as much attention as GDP.
But nope.
There was no press conference to talk about the figures and the media release accompanying the data led with the line that the figures showed “renewables are on the rise”.
That, shall we say, is polishing a rather large pile of excrement.
In the 12 months to March, Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions were higher than they were at the end of last year, and even higher than they were at the end of 2021.
Were I to graph it like I would the components of GDP, it would look like this:
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This rise should receive just as much attention and scrutiny as would the GDP figures next week if they showed the economy had gone backwards – they are a national disgrace.
But the figures also just serve to reinforce how much of a joke is our 2030 emissions target.
When you read the minister’s media release stating that “Australia’s emissions are now 24.4 per cent below June 2005 levels” you might think we’re doing well.
But at this point I need to once again tap the sign and note that almost all of the fall in emissions comes from the extremely dodgy inclusion of “land use, land use change and forestry” – essentially the emissions produced from land-clearing.
For the purposes of reducing our emissions from 2005 it means not clearing as much land as we did in 2005, which not coincidentally was when we cleared an absolute tonne – or to be precise 83.9Mt worth of CO2 emissions, roughly the same amount as is emitted each year by all agriculture in Australia.
Including land use in the figures (something Australia fought very hard at the UN climate change conferences to ensure we could) makes the drop rather easier to achieve:
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Were we to exclude land use and just count actual emissions (an odd concept I grant you) rather than be 24.4% below 2005 levels we would be just 1.6% lower:
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The problem is that while it is right to say our use of renewable electricity is rising, emissions are rising in the rest of the economy as well – whether it be from increased LNG exports or transport.
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And let me use the total of emissions that includes land use, just to highlight how bad things are even when using the measure the government would like us to judge them by.
Since 2016 the only drop in total emissions has come due to the pandemic lockdowns. Since then transport emissions have risen by more than the fall in electricity emissions. It means our total emissions are rising and the path to a 43% cut is a long way off:
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And while this is causing an existential threat that should have everybody taking to the streets demanding more action from the government (including, for example, demanding the government release reports on the impact of climate change on national security) climate change also affects our current largest economic crisis of cost of living.
On Tuesday night, the incoming governor of the Reserve Bank, Michele Bullock, gave a speech on climate change and Australia’s economy.
The key word of the speech was “risk” – mentioned 48 times.
And when you talk risk, you are talking insurance.
Bullock noted that “insurance contracts are typically renewed annually, so insurers can adapt their business more quickly to climate risks”. And how do they adapt? Well, as she noted, “they can pass on increased costs to their customers in the form of higher premiums”.
We already know that climate change and its risks are driving insurance premiums higher. Indeed, in the past year the cost of insurance has soared well beyond overall inflation:
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The impact of climate change is already here and being felt not just in increased temperatures. Insurance companies are not all that concerned with being warm and fuzzy environmentalists, but they sure as heck understand risk.
The lack of action reducing our emissions and thus fatally reducing our ability to pressure other wealthy nations to take real action is not just destroying the planet but costing households. And for that reason, if nothing else, we should care as much about our emissions as we do other economic data.
• Greg Jericho is a Guardian columnist and policy director at the Centre for Future Work
