The Albanese Government was sworn into office on 23 May 2022 with a commitment to end the climate wars and act on climate change. As part of this commitment, the government has strengthened and legislated emissions reduction targets for Australia and introduced a range of climate policies designed to achieve these targets. At the same time, the government has provided approvals and other material support for large new fossil fuel developments that would add billions of tonnes of carbon pollution to the global atmosphere.

This analysis provides a summary of fossil fuel projects that have received some form of approval from a Commonwealth Minister or regulator, or other forms of material support from the Albanese Government, and those that are currently in the balance.

Projected emissions from these projects are compared with cumulative carbon pollution reduction (approximately 960 Mt CO2-e) that is expected from the implementation of climate policies to meet the Australian 2030 emissions reduction target. A methodology for how the projects have been categorised and how their lifetime emissions were calculated is also provided.

The analysis demonstrates that the pollution that could be caused by fossil fuel projects that have received approvals or other support from the Albanese Government since coming to office will be many times larger than the total cumulative savings from all emissions reduction measures promised by the government to date.