Climate change, Australia: OECD per capita bigger emitter

While it accounts for just 1.5 % of global emissions, Australia is among the most emitter country per capita, even overcoming the levels of Us citizens and occupying the unwanted leadership between OECD countries.
In order to mitigate its contribution to climate change, the government is about to launch a carbon tax from July 2012, preceding an Emission Trading Scheme expected by 2015. The objective is to decouple its growing economy from the energy intensive profile, which is explained by coal based electricity production.

Actually is we consider the share of emission by sector, Energy accounts for over 70%, equaling 416.6 Emissions Mt CO2-e in the peak year 2008 (the trend has been leveled since then due to global economic crisis).
Interesting is the fact that land use and transformation in Australia is a minor factor of impact due to the low population living in an immense continent. As economy does not require consistent further land modification, there is great margin for improvement if energy and industrial process become more efficient.

Electricity generation is by distance the mayor source of emission for the Australians, contributing to almost half of all energy emissions thanks to the vast use of fossil fuels. As displayed in the following image, black coal or also known as anthracite is the mayor source, which holds also the highest concentration of carbon. The trend shows a recent reduction in its use for generation of electricity, mostly in benefit of hydroelectricity thanks to more abundant rainfall than usual (see for instance Queensland’s floods).

Australia’s reliance on coal-fired power stations drows on the fact that the country is very rich in such resources: It is among the four bigger producers of coal in a yearly basis. In addition, the industry represents a huge share of export: government websites declare black coal production and exports increasing significantly over the past two decades, while brown coal is used internally for electricity generation and not exported, as confirmed by the images.

In addition to the high emmission of CO2 coming from the numerous and aged coal-fired plants, it is important to list methane and nitrous oxide released by agriculture activities, and overall from fugitive emissions (during estraction and transportation of fossil fuels) which alone account for 42 Mt CO2-e.
Consistent are also transport related emission which are attenuated slightly by the fact that 16% of gasoline in Australia is ethanol blended (very low proportion by the way). Considerable are also emissions of Sulfur Hexafluoride from industrial processes. Fortunately in the case of this man-made chemical substance the trend is promising as emissions in Gigagrams of CO2 equivalent have been constantly decreasing since the nineties. Its main causes of emission are leakage from electrical switchgear, magnesium smelting processes and use in semiconductor manufacture. It cover particular importance as it holds the biggest global warming potential, so that even little quantities dispersed have huge impact.

After this brief overview of the Australian emission reality, a final question arises: will a Carbon Tax be enough to convince Australians reducing the energy-intensity of its economy? Or will not it affect the trends in one of the most resource-rich country, which finally holds little global contribution to global warming?

My thoughts go toward focusing on efficiency measures which are likely to provide better results and long term competitive advantage. It makes sense to treasure resources in the most efficient and less pollutant way while promoting increasingly the transition toward a renewable and sustainable energy generation.

Comments Off on Climate change, Australia: OECD per capita bigger emitter / 01 Feb 2012 por Francesco Mazzeo
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