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Let's compare two things: today's reality and tomorrow's projections. As lowly data journalists, the assumptions and models baked into the government's projections about Australia's 2030 emissions are above our pay grade. But we think we're staying within scope if we ask these simple questions: What if nothing changes? The latest quarterly emissions update showed a 3.4% fall on the previous quarter. That sounds half-way decent, except December quarter emissions are always lower. They jump

Over the next few weeks, we’ll cover the promises made at this month’s global climate change conference, COP28. ‘Words words words,’ Hamlet said. And that’s what most of the COP28 media coverage focused on. Specifically, it was five words: ‘transitioning away from fossil fuels.’ But while language in global agreements matters (why else would OPEC’s chief warn his members to ‘proactively reject any text’ that targets fossil fuels?), we’re more interested in the concrete actions and accountabilit

Yesterday, the federal government released Australia's quarterly Greenhouse Gas Inventory. Here is your summary. The Big Picture Australia’s net emissions increased slightly. Between June 2022 and 2023, we released 465.2 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (Mt CO2-e). This is 0.8% higher than the previous year. !function(){"use strict";window.addEventListener("message",(function(a){if(void 0!==a.data["datawrapper-height"]){var e=document.querySelectorAll("iframe");for(var t in a.dat

COP28 starts next week. Its full name is enough to turn anyone off: the 28th Conference of Parties (COP) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. But as the year's biggest deal-making forum for climate issues, it matters. The three things to know about COP are the negotiating blocs, their positions, and the issues. Here's your briefing. Building blocs Countries form negotiating blocs to boost leverage. In climate talks, the groups are often porous and overlapping. Some are formal a

A drumbeat is continuous pressure. It puts relentless focus on an issue. Ad hoc articles are easy to ignore. Persistent coverage with no end in sight provokes a reaction. Data is a mechanism to create a drumbeat. The series below is an example. They show Australia's confirmed Covid cases (pink lines) with Italy's (blue lines). Day 1 was the first day each country registered 100 cases. Italy was three weeks head. You probably remember charts like these from March 2020, and the sheer relief ar

This week we've been looking at the trees around us. They raise many questions, which we'll tackle in bite-sized chunks over the coming weeks. Today we're asking, how many trees would it take for Australia to offset all our emissions? Let's go. How much carbon do trees absorb? As trees grow, they absorb carbon dioxide from the air. That's why they're called 'carbon sinks'. The amount they absorb is complicated and to be honest, it's above my paygrade. But we did find some rules of thumb as a

The ACCC did a broad sweep of corporate environmental claims and found plenty of greenwashing. But let’s dive into one area: certification. Australia's 'Climate Active' The Australian Government's 'carbon neutral' certification scheme is called Climate Active. Here's how it works: Upshot: If companies buy enough offsets to cover their emissions, they are certified as 'carbon neutral' (effective immediately), even if real emissions are rising. Climate Active aims to use its currency — a cer

This week, fires ignited across the state. The Coolagolite blaze in Bega Valley burned 6,700ha of land. We want to share with you some background on the fire data we’ve collected so far, and what we hope to do. You can find it at the end of this email. This week, we’re going back to a big picture climate data topic: carbon budgets. Why bother to budget? Everyone understands a basic budget. You have a clear and limited resource that gets spent over time. In carbon budgets, the starting point