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'Fossil fuels a requirement of human prosperity'. That's what Vivek Ramaswamy, a top-polling US Republican presidential candidate, said in the party's recent primary debate. (Fwiw, Ramaswamy is also a millennial, which means his views on climate change swim against the tide of 71% of his generation.*) In this week's climate data briefing, we ask if this is true for Australia. Does our nation's wealth depend on emissions? GDP v. Emissions Since 2005, Australia’s real GDP* has grown to around

Australia's net emissions are rising. Last Friday afternoon, the federal government published its quarterly greenhouse gas update. It showed yearly net emissions have increased. Let’s dig into the data. (Hate jargon? There’s a glossary at the end.) The big picture Australia’s yearly emissions to March were 0.1% higher than the previous year (465.9 Mt CO2-e*). Early estimates for the year to June show an increase of 0.9% (466.9 Mt CO2-e). Key Points: The big winner: Electricity Electr

In the last briefing, we looked at transport emissions. But that's just one key indicator. Another is energy intensity. Let's dive in ... Why energy intensity matters Energy intensity is the power we need to get a specific output. When it comes to transport, that output is moving people and stuff. Energy efficiency means we use less power to get the same result. The International Energy Agency (IEA) says improving energy efficiency is one of the quickest and cheapest ways to reduce emissions

In this briefing: we drill down into car emissions. Headlines tell us Electric Vehicle sales are 'soaring'. We all know percentage increases off a low base tend to sound impressive. So this briefing gives you context. The first thing to know * Transport is Australia's second-biggest greenhouse gas emitter, after electricity. * The sector's emissions bounced around during the pandemic and are now slightly below pre-Covid levels. Chart below: Sector emissions (million tonnes CO₂-e. Excludes l

Carbon credits are critical in Australia’s net zero plan. How ACCUs work ACCU stands for Australian Carbon Credit Unit. The Clean Energy Regulator issues ACCUs to projects that avoid releasing greenhouse gases, or store or remove carbon from the atmosphere (1 x ACCU = 1 x tonne of CO₂ equivalent). ACCUs can be sold to private buyers who need to offset their own emissions elsewhere. There’s no limit to the number of ACCUs companies can buy The safeguard mechanism requires Australia’s b

In this briefing: State scoreboards for renewable energy generation. Nothing like a little healthy competition. Australians love a race. And the race is on to generate more electricity from renewables. Which state is winning? Here is a scoreboard showing the most renewable electricity generated by state. Renewable trends NSW did the heaviest lifting, both gross and per capita. Victoria picked up speed in 2020. Tasmania punched above its weight. Charts below: Electricity Generated from Re

Last week, we added electricity emissions to OnlyFacts. Our feature chart has three buttons at the top: electricity by power output, by emissions output and emissions intensity. Emissions intensity means emissions* divided by electricity produced. That is, how much bang do we get for our buck? Let's look at emissions output first. Data viz is always tricky when you're trying to put big and smallish numbers together. Above, you can see that emissions from brown and black coal totally obsc

We hear the words 'Net Zero' endlessly. But how many tonnes of greenhouse gases does that actually mean? The answer is surprisingly tricky to find. Let's focus on 2030 targets for now. Australia has committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 43% below 2005 levels by 2030. Eh? We've done the maths and found that means 351.3 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2-e)* in a year. In the previous year, Australia released 462.6 million. What's beneath the curve? To answer that