• BITRE: Bureau of Infrastructure and Transport Research Economics
• CER: Australia’s Clean Energy Regulator
• DCCEEW: Australia’s Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water
• FCAI: Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries

The Australian Carbon Credit Unit (ACCU) Scheme (formerly known as the Emissions Reduction Fund) registers projects that reduce emissions or store carbon in soils and vegetation. There are methodologies that determine the rules and eligible activities for running an ACCU Scheme project. You can read about the ACCU Scheme methods here.

CO2 in the atmosphere can be reduced ‘by taking advantage of the fact that atmospheric CO2 can accumulate as carbon in vegetation and soils in terrestrial ecosystems’ (Source: UNFCCC). Under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change any process, activity or mechanism which removes a greenhouse gas from the atmosphere is referred to as a ‘sink’. LULUCF refers to human activities that impact terrestrial sinks. LULUCF is the most variable emission sector in Australia’s greenhouse gas accounts. It is subject to fluctuations and revisions as estimates and methodologies vary between different datasets. The Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research has a useful explanation on why it does not include LULUCF in global emissions data.

• Mt = Million tonnes
• CO₂-e = Carbon Dioxide equivalent. This means all Greenhouse Gases are given a value in CO₂, based on their global warming potential

Our data source for global emissions (PRIMAP-hist) does not include Land Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF).

• Megawatt Hour (MWh): 1000 kilowatts of electricity generated per hour. Used to measure electric output or consumption.
• Petajoule (PJ): The joule is a standard unit of energy. One petajoule = 1 million billion joules. One joule is equivalent to one watt of power for one second. One petajoule is equivalent to the energy used by 19,000 homes in a year (Source: energy.gov.au)

• Net emissions: Emissions put into the atmosphere minus emissions removed from the atmosphere
• Gross emissions: Total emissions put into the atmosphere
• LULUCF: The only sector where both emissions and removals of carbon dioxide occur is Land Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry.

• GHG: Greenhouse Gas
• CO₂: Carbon Dioxide
• CH₄: Methane
• N₂O: Nitrous Oxide

This site brings together multiple datasets. Sometimes, that leads to different totals in different places. A good example of this is Australia’s total emissions. We track Australia’s emissions by sector, industry, and state and territory. Each of these result in a ‘total’ emissions for that category. The best place to view Australia’s total emissions is by sector. This is because sector emissions are updated more often (quarterly).