The claim
As school children gathered in front of Kirribilli House to demand further action from the government on climate change, Prime Minister Scott Morrison had a message for them.
When asked about the protest at a press conference in the Sydney suburb of Randwick, Mr Morrison sought to highlight Australia's record on emissions reductions, "contrary to what they might be being told by many people with other agendas".
"Australia is reducing its emissions by around 20 per cent. They probably mightn’t know that Australia has reduced its emissions by more than New Zealand, by more than Canada, by more than the United States, by more than Japan, by more than many countries in Europe," he said.
Has Australia reduced its emissions by more than the USA, New Zealand, Canada, Japan and many countries in Europe? RMIT ABC Fact Check investigates.
The verdict
Mr Morrison's claim is misleading.
Most problematic with Mr Morrison's claim is the use of a 2020 figure for Australia ("around 20 per cent").
Mr Morrison's figure accords with data found in Australia's National Greenhouse Gas Inventory, including land use, land-use change and forestry (LULUCF) and using 2005 as a starting year.
However, none of the countries with which he compares Australia have submitted 2020 data to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which does not enable a fair comparison.
Furthermore, the 2020 figure includes the effect of the pandemic, which experts told Fact Check contributed to a large drop in emissions world wide and had little to do with government policy.
If a like-for-like comparison were able to be made using 2020 data for all countries, it is possible Australia would rank worse than the countries he named.
Indeed, preliminary data for 2020 from the US shows a greater reduction than Australia under these parameters.
UNFCCC data, which is available to 2019, shows Australia ahead of the other countries he named specifically and many other countries, but behind many more countries.
Furthermore, the parameters used by Mr Morrison advantage Australia in international comparisons; Australia is behind more countries when a different starting year is used, or when LULUCF is excluded.
A previous claim
Fact Check has previously analysed a claim from Mr Morrison on this topic.
In November 2021, Mr Morrison claimed only four countries in the G20 had a better emissions reduction record than Australia, which he said had reduced its emissions by "more than 20 per cent".
Fact Check found that claim to be misleading.
A spokesman for Mr Morrison confirmed to Fact Check at the time that the 20 per cent figure was drawn from quarterly figures taken from Australia's National Greenhouse Gas Inventory, including land-use, land-use change and forestry.
The inventory showed a decrease of 20.5 per cent between the December 2005 quarterly figure and the December 2020 quarterly figure.
At the time, the latest annual figures for a calendar year showed a decrease of 19.9 per cent between 2005 and 2020. New calendar year figures have not yet been released.
Most problematic was Mr Morrison's use of a 2020 figure for international comparisons.
Chiefly, Mr Morrison's figure takes into account the first year of the pandemic, while other countries had not yet posted results for that year.
This is important, as the pandemic resulted in a marked reduction in emissions in many countries.
Furthermore, experts told Fact Check that large falls in emissions between 2019 and 2020 did not have anything to do with government policy.
A post on Facebook from the Liberal Party made a similar claim to the one Mr Morrison made recently, highlighting the records of Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the US and Japan, as well as the OECD.
But buried in the fine print of this graphic was the admission that Australia's figure was to 2020, while other countries were to 2019. The OECD was sourced to 2018 figures.
In assessing Mr Morrison's new claim, which involves a wider range of countries, Fact Check once again considers that to make fair like-for-like comparisons, the same starting and ending years should be used.
Annex I countries
As Fact Check has written previously, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change holds emissions data for countries who are party to the convention.
But not all countries report data to its secretariat every year or in the same way.
Annex I countries, comprised of members of the OECD in 1992 "plus countries with economies in transition (the EIT Parties), including Russia, the Baltic States, and several Central and Eastern European States," report their greenhouse gas emissions annually.
Other countries do not need to report as frequently.
Australia, Japan, the US, New Zealand and Canada are all Annex I countries. All other countries in this cohort either have contiguous territory in Europe or are part of the European Union, but there are some European countries, such as Albania, who are not included.
However, as Mr Morrison mentioned "many European countries" and the vast majority of European countries are Annex I countries, Fact Check will compare Australia to Annex I countries for this analysis.
As none of the countries on this list, including Australia, have submitted their National Inventory Report to the convention with figures for 2020, the latest year reported for these countries is 2019.
New data
However, new data has arisen from at least two of the countries on this list other than Australia, which has not been submitted to the convention.
Japan's National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES) has released a new year of preliminary data covering the Japanese financial year of 2020, which runs from April 2020 to March 2021. These figures do not include LULUCF.
And the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has also released preliminary figures for calendar year 2020, with figures excluding and including LULUCF.
The latest year of data Fact Check could find for New Zealand and Canada was still 2019. This also applies to the EU, which makes up the bulk of European countries.
Pep Canadell, chief research scientist at the CSIRO Climate Science Centre and the executive director of the Global Carbon Project, told Fact Check that he would trust the figures in the US and Japanese reports "100 per cent", despite their preliminary nature.
He said the EPA and the NIES are in charge of the carbon accounting for the US and Japan respectively and that the Global Carbon Project tracks their updates closely for their own global estimates.
"The updates will not bring changes large enough to change the conclusions you can make today," he told Fact Check in an email.
Including LULUCF, the US recorded a reduction of 21.5 per cent on 2005 levels, which is higher than Australia's 19.9 per cent.
Notably, between 2019 and 2020, there was a drop of 10.7 per cent in the United States, compared to only 5.0 per cent for Australia.
Excluding LULUCF, which allows a comparison with Japan's preliminary figures, Australia saw a reduction of 2.1 per cent between December 2005 and December 2020, which again is lower than Japan's 16.8 per cent reduction between the year to March 2006 and the year to March 2021.
(Japan reports its emissions according to its fiscal years, which run April 1 to March 31).
The US recorded a reduction of 19.7 per cent between calendar year 2005 and calendar year 2020.
To LULUCF or not to LULUCF?
As Fact Check has previously written, the inclusion of land use, land-use change and forestry as a carbon sink is the subject of much debate in carbon accounting.
The UNFCCC recognises human activity through land use, land-use change and forestry as a carbon "sink", which can remove carbon from the atmosphere.
Planting trees through afforestation or reforestation, for example, stores carbon, removing it from the air.
Australia's Greenhouse Gas Inventory includes LULUCF.
But experts previously told Fact Check that there are sometimes issues with the accuracy of measurements, and not all countries have significant LULUCF inventories, which means international comparisons are not always fair.
Furthermore, they said that the inclusion of the category advantages Australia in international comparisons.
Using data from the UNFCCC, Fact Check has graphed emissions reductions between 2005 and 2019 both including and excluding LULUCF for Annex I countries.
Including LULUCF, Australia, with a reduction on 2005 levels of 15.2 per cent, ranks 25th out of all Annex I nations, including the US, Japan, Canada and New Zealand.
There are 14 "European" countries behind Australia which could be described as "many", but there are also 24 European countries in front, a number which could be described as "many more".
The European Union, which is party to the convention, but not a country, saw a decline of around 22.5 per cent.
Removing LULUCF from the equation paints a much less rosy picture for Australia, with emissions since 2005 increasing by 4 per cent.
Only Russia, Iceland, Kazakhstan and Turkey are behind Australia when using this measure.
A different starting year
Different starting years can also affect a country's standing in international comparisons. 2005, as chosen by Mr Morrison, is a year that advantages Australia.
Experts previously told Fact Check that 1990, the year in which the UNFCCC data begins, is the best year to use as it is the year most countries begin their emissions accounts, while acknowledging that all choices of starting years advantage different countries in different ways.
Using 1990 as a starting year and including LULUCF has Australia faring slightly worse comparatively than using 2005 as a starting year.
Comparing Australia's National Greenhouse Gas Inventory with the US's preliminary data to 2020, Australia, with a reduction of 19.9 per cent fared better than the US, with a reduction of 6.7 per cent.
Using the UNFCCC data, Australia's emissions fell 15.7 per cent to 2019, but there are 26 "European" countries with greater reductions.
The US, Canada, New Zealand and Japan are all behind Australia, as are 12 other "European" countries.
On these parameters, Australia is also behind the EU, with a reduction of 30.2 per cent.
But the picture is much worse when excluding LULUCF.
According to Australia's inventory, emissions increased by 19.9 per cent between calendar years 1990 and 2020, compared to a reduction of 7.4 per cent in the US over the same period and 9.9 per cent for Japan between the years to March 1991 and March 2021.
And using UNFCCC data, Australia has increased emissions on this measure by 28.7 per cent to 2019.
This sees Australia's ranking fall to 41 of 43 countries, with only Cyprus and Turkey behind.
Under these parameters, it's difficult to see how Mr Morrison's claim that Australia has reduced emissions more than "many" European nations stacks up.
Principal researcher: Online Editor Matt Martino
Sources
- Scott Morrison, Press conference, March 25, 2022
- RMIT ABC Fact Check, Scott Morrison says there are only four countries in the G20 with a better emissions record than Australia. Is that correct?, December 8, 2021
- Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources, National greenhouse gas inventory quarterly update: December 2020
- US Environmental Protection Agency, Draft inventory of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions and sinks, February 15, 2022
- National Institute for Environmental Studies Japan, Japan’s National Greenhouse Gas Emissions in Fiscal Year 2020 (Preliminary Figures), December 10, 2021
- UNFCCC, GHG data from the UNFCCC
