This report examines the implications of committed and proposed developments in the liquefied natural gas and coal mining sectors for reform of the Australian Safeguard Mechanism.

In this report, the authors set out an assessment of the state of global science around offsets, and also examine the impact of the Australian government’s proposed changes for the country’s industrial emitters.

In December 2020, the Morrison Government projected Australia’s emissions would reach roughly 22% below 2005 levels by 2030, which falls short of its 26-28% Paris Agreement target. It is anticipated that the federal government will soon announce an increase in projected emissions reductions for 2030...

This report argues that the expansion in the exploitation of fossil fuel resources that Australia is planning goes against the global efforts to combat climate change and is not consistent with the global energy transition required to meet the Paris Agreement goals.

The Paris Agreement contains a long-term temperature goal (LTTG) of holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C and pursuing efforts to limit this to 1.5°C above preindustrial levels. The 1.5°C limit in the Paris Agreement goes significantly further than the...