Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions reports

Comprehensive data on Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions are published in Australia’s National Greenhouse Accounts, a series of reports and databases prepared by the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (DCCEEW). As well as fulfilling Australia’s reporting obligations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and Paris Agreement climate treaties, these accounts provide information on the quantity of Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions, where they come from, and how they have changed over time.

This quick guide provides an overview of Australia’s emissions reports, how they are compiled and how you can explore the data.

A brief overview of emissions reporting

DCCEEW follows estimation and reporting rules agreed to under the UNFCCC and the Paris Agreement when preparing estimates of Australia’s emissions. This includes following the guidelines set out in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2006 Guidelines for national greenhouse gas inventories, supplemented where applicable by the 2019 Refinement to the 2006 guidelines and the 2013 Wetlands supplement.

Australia’s emissions reports cover anthropogenic sources and sinks of greenhouse gas emissions. The reports cover the main greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide (CO₂), methane (CH₄), nitrous oxide (N₂O) and others. Because these different gases have different effects on global warming, with some gases more potent than others, emissions are often aggregated and reported in the common unit of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO₂-e) so that different gases can be directly compared. Gases are converted to units of CO₂-e using global warming potential values, which are updated periodically in reports from the IPCC as new scientific knowledge emerges.

Australia’s reports provide estimates of emissions, which are calculated using various methods. At the simplest level, emissions can be estimated by multiplying a measure of human activity (called ‘activity data’) by a number representing the emissions associated with each unit of this activity (an ‘emissions factor’), with more complex estimation methods adding other elements to this equation. The IPCC groups these methods into 3 different tiers, with higher level tiers representing more complex methods (p. 1.6). Countries can also develop their own methods and emissions factors to improve emissions estimates, as long as they are consistent with IPCC guidelines. Australia mostly uses country-specific methods to estimate emissions. In some circumstances, complex modelling is required. For example, Australia has developed and uses the Full Carbon Accounting Model (known as ‘FullCAM’) to model emissions in the land sector.

Estimation methods are updated over time to account for advances in research, data, technology and best practices. These are referred to as ‘method improvements’ and typically result in recalculations, which means that the new method, or way of calculating emissions estimates, is applied to generate estimates for the latest year and all previous years in the series (p. 9). This enables like-for-like comparisons to be made across years, and also means that historical emission estimates may not be the same across different editions of each report. It is important to refer to the most recent edition of each report when looking for data on emissions to obtain the most up-to-date estimates.

Like any estimation process, emissions estimates come with a degree of uncertainty. The National inventory report 2022, which estimated Australia’s total emissions for the 2021–22 financial year, reported an overall uncertainty of ±5.4% (p. 27).

Sectors

In most of DCCEEW’s reports, emissions are grouped into 5 main sectors in accordance with the UNFCCC classification system. These sectors are summarised below and in each report in the National Greenhouse Accounts, as well as on DCCEEW’s ‘Australia's National Greenhouse Accounts’ website (see ‘Help and support’ > ‘Glossary’):

• Energy – covers the production of energy and direct combustion of fossil fuels including, burning fossil fuels to generate electricity, combustion of fossil fuels in industry, buildings and transportation, and fugitive emissions from the extraction, processing and delivery of fossil fuels. This sector is Australia’s largest source of emissions.
• Industrial processes and product use (IPPU) – covers the emissions from non-energy related industrial activities, such as the production of metals and chemicals, the use of synthetic gases in products like refrigerants and emissions from non-energy uses of fossil fuels.
• Agriculture – covers emissions associated with agriculture, such as emissions from ruminant animals, manure management, crops, rice cultivation, soils and burning of agricultural residues.
• Land use, land use change and forestry (LULUCF) – covers emissions associated with activities that impact how much carbon is stored in soils and vegetation, such as deforestation or forest regeneration. This sector has been a net sink of emissions in Australia since 2014–15.
• Waste – covers emissions from waste disposal and treatment, such as landfill and wastewater.

Data in the National Inventory by Economic Sector, discussed further below, is grouped differently by industry sector.

Data sources

DCCEEW uses many sources of data to compile emissions reports, with an overview of the main sources shown in Table 1.1 of the 2022 National inventory report (p. 24).

A key data source is the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting scheme (NGER scheme), administered by the Clean Energy Regulator. The NGER scheme requires companies that meet certain thresholds to report their energy usage, energy production and emissions each year. Much of the emissions data for the Energy, IPPU and Waste sectors comes from the NGER scheme.

Types of emissions included

Australia’s greenhouse accounts primarily report on scope 1 emissions, which are emissions released as a direct result of a specific activity. For example, if a power plant burns coal to generate electricity, emissions from the combustion of that coal would be part of the power plant’s scope 1 emissions. These are sometimes called ’direct’ emissions.

Scope 2 emissions, which are also called indirect emissions, are emissions associated with the production of electricity that is purchased for use. For example, a business purchasing electricity generated by a coal-fired power station would report scope 2 emissions equal to the emissions from the coal combusted to produce that electricity. Scope 2 emissions are reported in the National Inventory by Economic Sector.

Scope 3 emissions, which are indirect emissions other than scope 2 emissions, are not reported in the accounts. Scope 3 emissions include emissions embedded in the supply chain of products. For example, emissions associated with the burning of coal or natural gas after it has been exported by Australian companies are not included in Australia’s national emissions estimates.

Emissions from international aviation and maritime transport are calculated but are not included in national emissions totals, in accordance with internationally agreed guidelines.

What reports are published?

National Inventory Report

The National Inventory Report (NIR) provides a comprehensive annual review of Australia’s emissions and the methods used to estimate emissions. Published across 2 volumes that span over 400 pages each, these reports provide detailed information and analysis of emissions from 1989–90 to the financial year ending 2 years before publication. Each report is titled in reference to that year, meaning the NIR published in 2024 is called the ‘National Inventory Report 2022’. This delay between data and publication date is standard for national inventories and allows time for the necessary data to be compiled, analysed and checked.

Each year, the NIR is submitted to the United Nations Climate Change Secretariat as part of Australia’s reporting requirements under the UNFCCC and Paris Agreement.

Quarterly Update of Australia's National Greenhouse Gas Inventory

The Quarterly Updates present the most up-to-date data on Australia’s emissions in a summarised form. These updates are published 5 months after each quarter and are titled in reference to these quarters, meaning the update published in August 2024 is titled Quarterly update of Australia’s national greenhouse gas inventory: March 2024. These reports use the same methods described in the NIR to estimate emissions, supplemented with additional methods to estimate recent growth in emissions where complete data is not yet available.

The Quarterly Updates sometimes include ‘special topic’ papers, which provide further analysis or explanation on topics related to emissions reporting. For example, the June 2023 quarterly update included a special topic that provides more information on how the quarterly emissions estimates are compiled.

State and Territory Greenhouse Gas Inventories

The State and Territory Greenhouse Gas Inventories (STGGI) contain the same data that is in the NIR, disaggregated by state and territory. While DCCEEW does not publish a written report with an analysis of this data, it does publish a webpage with further details on the data and methods, and each state and territory may publish their own reports and analysis of emissions within their jurisdiction.

National Inventory by Economic Sector

The National Inventory by Economic Sector contains the same data that is in the NIR, with the data disaggregated according to economic sectors using the Australia and New Zealand Standard Industry Classifications. Like the STGGI, DCCEEW does not publish a written report with this information but publishes a webpage with further information on the data and methods.

Where can I find emissions data?

DCCEEW’s ‘Australia's National Greenhouse Accounts’ website contains data from all of the reports discussed in this guide, as well as information on projections of future greenhouse gas emissions.

The ‘Emissions inventory’ section of the website contains interactive data explorers that allows users to view data from the different reports discussed in this guide. Users can select data for different sectors, gases and years, and download this data in a graph or table format.

Data can also be downloaded from the ‘Datasets and API’ section of the website.

What’s the difference between the Paris Agreement, UNFCCC and Kyoto Protocol inventories? The Australia's National Greenhouse Accounts website includes data for 3 different national inventories; the Paris Agreement, UNFCCC and Kyoto Protocol inventories. These inventories differ slightly as they follow different reporting guidelines agreed to under each treaty, including different treatment of the LULUCF sector and the use of different global warming potentials. The Paris Agreement inventory corresponds to the current National Inventory Report and uses global warming potentials from the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report. The UNFCCC and Kyoto Protocol inventories use global warming potentials from the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report.

DCCEEW also now publishes Power BI dashboards with the release of each report. The webpages for the latest National Inventory Report, Quarterly Update, State and Territory Greenhouse Gas Inventory and National Inventory by Economic Sector each have interactive dashboards allowing users to explore the high‑level data contained in each report.