Australia’s Latest Emissions Report

This article was contributed by Sustainability Tracker.

Is the latest emissions report just a little bit greenwashy?

Written By: Kiarne Treacy, CEO and Founder of Sustainability Tracker

Australia’s emissions are officially 25% lower than they were in 2005. That number is true. But does the way we communicate it give Australians the right impression of how much progress we’ve actually made?

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The Latest Emissions Report

On Friday (28th August 2026) , the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water released its latest ⁠Quarterly Update of Australia’s National Greenhouse Gas Inventory.

The accompanying statement from Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen was understandably upbeat.

Australia’s emissions fell 1.6% in the year to March 2026. Electricity emissions fell 3.7%, driven by record renewable generation displacing coal and gas. Fugitive emissions fell 3.3%. Agriculture fell 1%. These are real reductions and they should be recognised as such.  

There is genuine progress happening in Australia’s energy transition.

But there is another number sitting prominently in the report: Australia’s emissions are now 25% below 2005 levels.

That number made me stop.

Because if you told an ordinary Australian that the country’s emissions had fallen 25% since 2005, what would they reasonably understand that to mean?

I suspect many would think Australia is now emitting roughly a quarter less across the economy than it was 20 years ago.

That isn’t really what has happened though.

What is actually behind the 25% emissions reduction?

Australia’s National Greenhouse Gas Inventory counts emissions and removals from the Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry sector (LULUCF), which can significantly shift the national total depending on land-clearing and reforestation activity.

It should. This isn’t dodgy accounting. Australia’s inventory is prepared under internationally agreed Paris Agreement reporting rules and includes both greenhouse gas sources and sinks, but including the land sector has an enormous effect on that headline number.

The government’s report says the change in LULUCF since 2005 is 128.8 million tonnes of CO₂-equivalent — the largest reduction of any sector by a considerable margin. The government attributes that change to reduced land clearing and native forest harvesting, increased plantations and native vegetation and improvements in soil carbon on agricultural land. 

Today, the land sector is estimated to be a net carbon sink of 52 million tonnes CO₂-e a year. In other words, on a net basis, it removes more greenhouse gases than it emits. 

Now look at what has happened in the sectors we more conventionally think of when we talk about “cutting emissions”.

Since 2005, electricity emissions have fallen 26.8%. That’s a significant achievement and demonstrates the impact renewables are having, but transport emissions have increased 23%, stationary energy emissions have increased 19.9%, fugitive emissions have increased 6.9% and industrial processes and product use have increased 4.5%.

While agricultural emissions have fallen 9.2%. 

Put all those sectors together, excluding LULUCF, and the reduction since 2005 is only around 4%.

That’s a very different story from “emissions down 25%.”

Can both emissions numbers be true at once?

This is where it all gets interesting from a greenwashing perspective. I am not suggesting the government’s 25% number is false. It isn’t.

The report clearly explains that national emissions include LULUCF, and the methodology is consistent with Australia’s international reporting obligations. 

What I’m questioning is the overall impression created when that number is communicated.

Because one of the most important lessons in environmental communication is that a claim doesn’t necessarily have to be factually incorrect to mislead.

The ⁠ACCC’s environmental claims guidance makes precisely this point for businesses: even factually correct claims can sometimes mislead when you consider their overall impression. It also tells businesses not to hide or omit important information that consumers need to understand the full picture.  

Obviously, the ACCC’s guidance regulates businesses making environmental claims. I’m not suggesting a ministerial media release is subject to those rules in the same way, but as a standard for good environmental communication, it’s an interesting test to apply.

And there’s an almost uncannily relevant example in the ACCC’s own guidance.

It describes an airline claiming that it is “reducing emissions” because some flights use sustainable aviation fuel, while its overall emissions are actually expected to increase. The individual fact may be true, but the ACCC says leaving out the broader information can create a misleading impression about the airline’s overall environmental impact.  

The principle is simple: Context matters.

Then there’s where we’re heading on emissions

There’s another piece of context worth putting alongside Friday’s good news.

Australia has committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions 62–70% below 2005 levels by 2035, but the government’s own ⁠2025 emissions projections currently project a reduction of only 48% by 2035. Across the 2031–35 period, projected emissions are 20–34% above the emissions budget associated with the target.  

There is an important qualification here.

Those projections do not include policies announced alongside the 2035 target. The government says future policies arising from its Net Zero Plan and six sector plans weren’t sufficiently developed to be included in the 2025 modelling. So 48% isn’t a prediction that Australia will miss its target, but it does mean that the government’s currently modelled policies don’t yet demonstrate a plausible pathway to 62–70%.

Again: context.

Reduction progress deserves to be celebrated, but tell us the whole story

I want Australia’s emissions to fall. I want renewable electricity to continue smashing records. I want transport emissions to turn the corner. I want us to hit 43% by 2030 and then blow through the 2035 target.

Friday’s numbers contain genuinely good news, but celebrating a 1.6% annual reduction alongside a headline figure showing emissions 25% below 2005, without giving equal prominence to the extraordinary role the land sector has played in producing that long-term reduction, creates a much rosier picture of Australia’s economy-wide decarbonisation than the underlying sector data does.

The interesting thing is that the information isn’t hidden. It’s right there in the report.

The government explicitly tells us that LULUCF has experienced the largest emissions reduction of any sector since 2005. It tells us transport and stationary energy emissions have risen substantially. It gives us charts showing the individual sector trajectories. But you have to put those pieces together yourself, and that’s the part I keep coming back to.

If a company published an environmental claim that was technically correct but created a considerably more positive impression than the complete data supported, we’d quite reasonably start asking questions about greenwashing.

So perhaps we should hold governments communicating their environmental performance to a similarly high standard.

I’m not questioning the government’s numbers. I’m taking them at face value. I am questioning the story those numbers are being used to tell.

I’m genuinely interested in what others think too. Is this fair communication of Australia’s emissions progress? Or is it all just a little bit greenwashy?