Work to regulate one of Australia’s biggest sources of carbon dioxide and other pollutants “has stalled”, despite the project beginning six years ago and comparable nations limiting emissions years earlier, New South Wales government documents have revealed.
State and federal environment ministers agreed in 2018 to examine pollution from non-road diesel engines as part of the national clean air agreement. These machines totalled more than 640,000 – ranging from mining trucks, outboard motors and forklifts to electricity generators – and were forecast to reach 945,000 by 2043.
Annual carbon dioxide emissions from these sources were about 5% of the national total and were predicted to increase by 27% in the decade to 2028 and exceed their 2018 levels by more than two-thirds by 2043, a 2022 federal government report found.
That report also estimated sulphur-dioxide pollution from the machines would rise 68% and nitrous oxide 45% between 2018 and 2043, resulting in thousands of years of life lost to people exposed.
The government cited a 2020 study finding that the devices emitted “almost double the amount of particulate matter from the entire on-road fleet” of about 19.2m vehicles of all fuel types.
But efforts to limit those emissions may have hit a wall.
A June meeting by NSW’s environment protection authority heard “Commonwealth work on non-road diesel vehicle emission requirements has stalled, emphasising the importance of NSW progressing work on this”, according to a document released under freedom of information laws and provided to Guardian Australia.
An EPA spokesperson declined to detail what had caused the stalling, saying the agency was “actively working on requirements for non-road diesel vehicles in coalmines”. The commitments were part of a 2023-26 action plan, although the EPA had flagged emissions rules for coal mining almost a decade ago.
A department spokesperson, answering on behalf of the federal climate minister, Chris Bowen, said “the government’s evaluation of the potential for introducing a national standard to manage noxious emissions from non-road diesel engines is well progressed”.
“The work remains important for government and will continue to be progressed,” the spokesperson said, without providing a date for its completion.
Non-road diesel use produced 29.5m tonnes of CO2-equivalent emissions in 2018, an amount similar in size to total industry pollution. Any increase in emissions from such sources would make it harder for Australia to reach the legislated target of cutting 2005-level carbon pollution 43% by 2030.
Australia’s lack of regulation of the sector compares with the US introducing standards in 1996 and the European Union three years later, with Canada, South Korea, India and China, among others following. Australia introduced emissions rules for diesel road vehicles in 1995 and will have efficiency standards for cars from next January.
“We are concerned to hear that progress has stalled on cleaning up air pollution from diesel-burning,” said Georgina Woods, a research head at Lock the Gate.
“As the biggest industrial user of diesel, the mining industry is the biggest contributor to the health and budget costs of the noxious and particulate pollution that creates,” Woods said. “It’s becoming a pattern for the mining industry to block environmental protections that Australians need and we hope that is not what is happening in this case.”
Guardian Australia approached the Minerals Council for comment.
The mining sector accounted for 60% of diesel use in Australia, the government’s report said.
That report estimated that atmospheric concentrations of NO2 and PM2.5 particulates from non-road diesel engines in 2018 resulted in combined years lost for those exposed at 5,387, equating to a cost to society of $1.6bn (in 2021 dollars).
“Health impacts and costs would continue to be incurred in future years,” it said, adding that accumulated years lost between 2018 and 2063 would exceed 250,000 on current trajectories.
Kate Charlesworth, a Climate Council councillor and physician who reviewed a council report on air pollution effects on children, said it was a “big gap” that non-road diesel pollution was unregulated.
“We now understand there’s no safe level of air pollution,” Charlesworth said, adding it’s a “solvable problem … You can do something about relatively quickly, and you’d see benefits relatively quickly as well”.
