The Tasmanian Policy Exchange (TPE) has published its second annual analysis of Tasmania’s greenhouse gas emissions. These reports provide an independent and accessible assessment of how Tasmania’s emissions are tracking based on the latest Commonwealth data.
The good news is that Tasmania remains one of the few places on the planet with a net-zero emissions profile because our forests and soils remove more carbon from the atmosphere (about 13 million tonnes per annum) than our cars, trucks, industry, agriculture, and other processes emit (about 8 million tonnes per annum).
However, we shouldn’t be too quick to pat ourselves on the back. The volume of ‘absolute’ (or ‘gross’) emissions that Tasmania produces has barely changed over the last 30 years. If anything, our absolute emissions are trending slowly upward. While other states and territories are getting on with the job of reducing absolute emissions per capita in the transport, agriculture and industry sectors, Tasmania is stagnating. In fact, over the 12-month period covered in the most recent inventory report, Tasmania increased its per capita emissions in all categories except waste, while national emissions declined by 6%.
TPE Research Fellow Dr Lachlan Johnson explains the situation in the following way. ‘Tasmania’s net-negative emissions status is unique among wealthy and industrialised jurisdictions but, while worth celebrating, it’s basically a happy accident. Our emissions profile is driven almost entirely by removals and sequestration, and it’s essential we understand that our forests won’t always remove and store carbon from the atmosphere at the rate they have over the past 10-15 years.
'If we don’t start taking much more aggressive action to reduce our emissions in other sectors, we’ll waste this invaluable window of opportunity and will likely to return to net-positive emissions, possibly as soon as 2030.’
We cannot continue to be complacent and let our historical hydroelectricity head start and the recent decline of forestry do all our heavy lifting. If we do, we will soon be overtaken. Our analysis reveals that absolute emissions per capita in South Australia are now the same as Tasmania’s, and Victoria isn’t far behind. And we do not want to be left behind as the world transitions to a low-carbon future.
As Professor Richard Eccleston states, ‘Tasmania needs a whole-of-state economic and community development strategy focusing on climate action and sustainability to underpin future investment in our industries and people. This would play to our strengths, reflecting our moral obligations to the planet and future generations.’
The report sets out the key reasons why more urgent and ambitious climate action is required in Tasmania. The TPE's analysis is part of the University of Tasmania’s commitment to supporting climate action in Tasmania.
Read the report and accompanying op-ed published in the Mercury here.
Read more of the TPE’s work undertaken to support Tasmania’s transition to a low-carbon jurisdiction and maintain its leadership on climate action here.