On 20 March 2014 the Abbott Liberal-Nationals Coalition Government’s Clean Energy Legislation (Carbon Tax Repeal) Act 2014 was passed by both houses of the Australian Parliament amid scenes of ministerial jubilation in the House of Representatives and became law on 17 July 2014.
Since then it appears that this ideologically driven move away from squarely facing the fact of climate change has seen Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions begin to rise once more, along with sharply rising energy costs to consumers.
The Sydney Morning Herald, 22 December 2016
Until it now seems the Turnbull Liberal-Nationals Coalition Government may be actively attempting to hide the increasingly bad news from the national electorate on whose behalf it purports to govern.
The Sydney Morning Herald, 7 July 2017:
The federal government has been keeping almost a year's worth of pollution data secret, despite it being scheduled for release in May, documents obtained under freedom of information laws reveal.
Independent estimates suggest Australia's greenhouse gas emissions have risen sharply since the government last released its quarterly data in December – a trend that would make the nation's commitment to cutting emissions more disruptive and expensive.
Quarterly updates by the National Greenhouse Gas Inventory, described as "up-to-date information on emissions trends for business, policymakers and the public", have been released 28 times since 2009, but not since last year.
Documents obtained under FOI by the Australian Conservation Foundation reveal that while the government possesses data on greenhouse pollution for the two quarters leading up to the end of last year, it has failed to release them……
According to estimates by consultant NDEVR Environmental, Australia's overall emissions increased by 1.15 per cent in the first quarter of this year, while electricity sector emissions increased by 11 per cent.
The overall emissions increase is equivalent to an extra 2,308,846 cars on the road.
According to NDEVR Environmental, the increase is almost entirely attributable to electricity emissions, while other sectors such as transport emissions decreased over the quarter……
UPDATE
Australia's National Greenhouse Accounts, Quarterly Update of Australia's NationalGreenhouse Gas Inventory: December 2016 (incorporating the Quarterly Update:September 2016 quarter,released late Friday, 7 July 2017:
“For the December
quarter 2016, national emissions levels, excluding the Land Use, Land Use
Change and Forestry (LULUCF) sector, have increased 0.4 per cent relative to
the previous quarter on a seasonally adjusted and weather normalised basis.
For the year to December 2016, emissions increased 1.4 per cent on the previous
year.”
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