Rising Coal Production, Falling Emissions

Australia’s coal production has surged, yet reported fugitive emissions have barely increased. This emissions paradox is largely attributable to underground mine closures and emissions accounting shifts, rather than genuine emissions reductions.

Over the last 35 years, Australia’s coal production has increased significantly, but officially reported estimates of coal mining emissions have effectively returned to their original levels.

In the September 2024 update to the greenhouse gas emissions inventory, Australia’s net emissions were estimated to have reached 434.9 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (Mt CO2-e). This includes significant emissions reductions in the land-use sector, and is  estimated to reflect a reduction of 29% compared to annual emissions in 2005, and a 32% reduction compared to 1990 (640.6 Mt CO2-e).

This reduction has been largely driven by the globally significant growth of renewable energy across Australia. Australia is now the ninth-highest absolute generator of solar and wind electricity. With over 4 million households directly invested in rooftop solar, Australia also proudly has the highest rates of rooftop solar generation anywhere in the world. As a result, the electricity sector has been the driving force of Australia’s emissions reduction journey, with emissions now 23.4% lower than they were in 2005.

However, Australia’s emissions reduction journey has not been linear. Total emissions reductions across the economy have stalled over the last three years, with reductions of less than 1% each year since COVID-19. This has also occurred largely as a result of significant re-calculations of the ability for land-use change to sequester carbon emissions each year.

Outside of the land-use sector, fugitive emissions from coal mining have experienced one of the most significant sectoral emission drops across the economy. In the 2024 financial year alone,  reported coal mine fugitive emissions decreased by 7.6 per cent, marking one of the fastest sub-sectoral reductions across the economy. Compared to 2005, fugitive emissions in the coal sector have reduced by over 20%, marking a reported emissions reduction rate similar to that of the electricity sector.

This emissions decrease occurred during a period of dramatic increases in coal production across the country. Since 1990, raw coal production in Australia has increased by 170%, rising from 201 million tonnes to 542 million tonnes in 2022. This included a 46% increase in underground mining over this time, and a 224% increase in open-cut mining.

In contrast, the total direct emissions attributed to coal mining, known as Scope 1 emissions have increased by 32% since 1990.  This includes emissions from diesel fuel, as well as emissions from coal processing and handling. At the same time as this overall emissions increase, fugitive emissions from coal mining have only grown by 0.17%. When compared to the increase in coal production, the average fugitive emissions intensity per tonne of coal has decreased by 63% between 1990 and 2022. 

During this time, there have been significant mitigation investments at several underground coal mines over the last three decades. This includes the world’s first commercial scale VAM-to-power project at the West Cliff Colliery, which saw 2 million tonnes of CO2-e reduced from the Illawarra’s West Cliff Mine between 2007 and 2017. It also includes up to $100 million per annum in investments in pre-mine drainage across Anglo American’s steelmaking coal mines that has potentially mitigated up to 5.3 million tonnes of CO2-e compared to fugitive emissions levels in 2019.  This reduction continued in 2024, but was bolstered by the closure of Grosvenor mine.

However, this report highlights three additional drivers of this significant emissions shift over the last thirty years. This includes a shift towards more open-cut mining, a decline in underground mining emissions due to the unplanned closure of super-emitting mines, and an accounting shift in the way in which open-cut mine emissions have been calculated over the last fifteen years.