Australia’s emission estimates by economic sector by year from 1990 to 2019.
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Source: National Inventory by Economic Sector 2019 (DISER, 2021)
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Data insights
Emission increases between 2018 and 2019:
- Emissions from the mining industry increased 5.4% or 5.1 Mt CO2-e between 2018 and 2019. This was mainly due to expansion in liquefied natural gas production.
- Emissions from the commercial services industry increased by 29.6% or 4.3 Mt CO2-e. These are mostly related to variations in bushfire emissions, attributed to firefighting organisations.
- Emissions from the transport, postal and warehousing industry increased by 2.9% or 0.9 Mt CO2-e.
Emission reductions between 2018 and 2019:
- Emissions decreased from the residential sector by 0.7% or 0.5 Mt CO2-e, largely due to decreased emissions from private transport activity.
- Emissions from the electricity, gas, water and waste industry decreased by 2.0% or 3.9 Mt CO2-e. This was primarily due to decrease in emissions from coal consumption for electricity generation.
- Emissions from the manufacturing industry decreased by1.6% or 1.0 Mt CO2-e.
- Emissions from the agriculture, forestry and fishing industry activity (after taking account of changes in inventories of forests and wood products) experienced a decrease of 18.1% or 20.7 Mt CO2-e. This was associated with soil carbon management and reduction in livestock numbers.
Over the longer term, direct emissions have increased since 1990 in:
- mining (115.6% or 53.5 Mt CO2-e)
- services, construction and transport (64.3% or 24.4 Mt CO2-e)
- the residential sector (31.5% or 15.7 Mt CO2-e)
- electricity, gas, water and waste (24.0% or 36.1 Mt CO2-e)
Emission reductions since 1990:
- Emissions have declined in the agriculture, forestry and fishing (68.0% or 198.5 Mt CO2-e) and manufacturing (13.6% or 9.1 Mt CO2-e) industries.
- The strong decline in agriculture, forestry and fishing reflects the impacts of declining emissions from the primary clearing of forest for agricultural use.
About the data
The National Inventory by Economic Sector 2019 provides information on national emissions. Data is disaggregated by industry under the Australian and New Zealand Standard Industrial Classification 2006 (ANZSIC; ABS cat. No. 1292.0) and the residential sector.
These estimates are based on national emissions estimates. They are consistent with how the Australian Government will acquit its emission reduction commitments under the Paris Agreement.