National Greenhouse Gas Inventory Quarterly Update: June 2022

The Quarterly Update of Australia’s National Greenhouse Gas Inventory reports on the latest greenhouse gas emissions.

This update provides estimates of:

• national emissions up to the June quarter of 2022
• preliminary national emissions up to the September quarter of 2022.

Data insights

Emissions for the year to June 2022 are estimated to be 486.9 Mt CO₂-e, up 0.1% or 0.4 Mt CO₂-e on the previous year. This change in emissions reflects the balance of events and activities in several sectors:

• Ongoing reductions in emissions from electricity (down 3.7%; 6.1 Mt CO₂-e);
• Reductions in transport emissions (down 1.0%; 0.9 Mt CO₂-e) reflecting the final impacts of COVID restrictions on movement in the September 2021 quarter;
• Increased emissions from stationary energy (excluding electricity) (up 3.1%; 3.1 Mt CO₂-e) driven primarily by an increase in fuel combustion in the manufacturing sector; 
• Increased emissions from agriculture (up 3.3%; 2.5 Mt CO₂-e) due to the continuing recovery from drought driving increases in livestock numbers and crop production; and
• Increased fugitive emissions (up 3.4%; 1.6 Mt CO₂-e), reflecting increased production of LNG.

Emissions in the year to June 2022 were 21.6% below emissions in the year to June 2005 (the baseline year for Australia’s 2030 target under the Paris Agreement).

On a quarterly basis, national emission levels for the June quarter 2022 increased 0.3% or 0.3 Mt CO₂-e on the previous quarter in trend terms. The trend result for the June quarter 2022 reflects increases across the electricity, transport and industrial processes sectors. These increases were partially offset by decreases across the stationary energy (excluding electricity) and fugitive emissions sectors.

In the year to June 2022, the emissions intensity of the economy was at its lowest level in 32 years, 69.5% below 1990 levels.  Emissions per capita were lower than 1990 by 50.1%, despite recent volatility caused by lower than usual population growth during the COVID pandemic.

National emissions are preliminarily estimated to be 489 Mt CO₂-e in the year to September 2022, an increase of 0.3% on the previous year. On a quarterly basis, national emissions are preliminarily estimated to be 123 Mt CO₂-e, an increase of 0.2% on the previous quarter in trend terms.

Quarterly emissions

The interactive dashboard presents national emissions estimates from June 2005 to June 2022. You can navigate between the pages to see emissions estimates by quarter, year, gas and sector.

Mouse over and click to view actual emissions or trends for any quarter. You can filter the data using the drop-down boxes.

Source: Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water

About the data

We compiled this report in line with emissions estimation rules countries adopted under the Paris Agreement.

Australia’s National Greenhouse Gas Accounts take into account the latest scientific evidence. We fulfil our international treaty commitments by submitting annual National Inventory Reports to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). A UNFCCC expert team reviews them each year for transparency, accuracy, completeness, comparability and consistency.