Figure 1  below was included in my previous post (1) – it shows that per capita global CO2 emissions are around 5 tonnes/person/year.   This figure is for CO2 emissions resulting directly from the combustion of coal, oil and gas and also from land use and forestry activities.  There are also non CO2 GHG emissions from gases such as methane and nitrous oxide. These are converted to CO2 equivalents (CO2 (eq)) to reflect the amount of CO2 that would give the same warming.   In total, global GHG emissions are about 6.5 tonnes CO2 (eq) / person/year.

Figure 1

Media coverage often uses CO2 and CO2 (eq) interchangeably which can be a bit confusing when comparing data from different countries and sources.  As shown in Figure 2 below, direct CO2 emissions from fossil fuels and industrial processes make up about 65% of total GHG emissions. This source of emissions is the most reliable as national and regional fossil fuel consumption figures (as well as industrial output of commodities like steel and aluminium) can be cross checked against global production and shipment data.   

Estimates of CO2 emissions from forestry and land use are less robust, being reliant on national data which can be incomplete for many nations.  Methane and nitrous oxide are mostly derived from the size of national sheep, goat and cattle herds, though some methane emissions are presumed to occur from leaks in natural gas pipelines especially when used to transport natural gas over long distances.  While the total global emissions of methane and nitrous oxide can be inferred from changes in atmospheric concentration, attribution to specific activities in specific nations can be problematic.  

Figure 2 

Source: US EPA (2)

Looking specifically at Australia we can see from Table 1 that it has per capita emissions of about 22.0 tonnes CO2 (eq)/person/year of which about 17 tonnes CO2/person/year comes directly from the combustion of fossil fuels.  It should be noted that this does not include the emissions from the combustion of Australian coal and gas exported to overseas consumers. If these were included, Australia’s emissions would be something like 60 tonnes CO2 (eq)/person/year.  This, however, is not the way emission data is collected – emissions are recorded against the country where the emissions actually occur – not against the country where the emission source was first harnessed (eg emissions for coal mined in Australia and exported to Japan becomes part of Japanese GHG emissions ).  Equally, when European demand for steel drives the operation of Chinese blast furnaces production in China, it is China who records the emissions not the European nation who ultimately uses the steel.  

There will be some who contend that this methodology gives Australia a free pass for its coal and gas exports but this is a topic for another day.  Based on current reporting protocols Australia has a GHG emission rate over three times the global average suggested that getting to net zero by 2050 could be a very tough challenge.  So why are Australian emissions so high and does this reflect a weaker level of ambition relative to other nations when it comes to decarbonisation?

Table 1 shows published emissions data from a number of mostly OECD nations showing Australia’s emissions are the highest of the selected group and are not only well above the global average but also above the OECD average.  The data also shows a wide difference in emissions between Australia as the highest emitter and Sweden which is the lowest. Neither of these nations, however, is an outlier as there is a relatively even spread of emission rates between these nations.

Table 1 – Per Capita Emissions From Selected Countries (3)

Questions about Australia’s emissions performance could thus be broadened to ask what drives such a wide discrepancy within the nations listed in the Table above and why some developed nations are below the global average and some 3-4 times higher?  Looking at all the potential factors for the nations listed above is beyond the scope of this article but if we compare Australia as an example of nation with a high emission rate with one of the nations with a lower emission rates we should be able to highlight some of the major factors which influence relative national performance.

With an emission rate of about 5.1 tonnes CO2 (eq)/person/year, let’s choose Sweden as the low emissions case study  – it is a wealthy, developed nation of 10 million residents with a reasonably diversified economy and no obvious evidence that it has sacrificed the standard of living of its inhabitants to achieve reduced emissions.  We will explore if the Swedish have any structural advantages that help with achieving low emissions (other than having Greta as a citizen). It should be noted that there is no assumption that 5.1 tonnes CO2 (eq)/person/year  represents some sort of minimum emission level or that developed nations won’t be able to further reduce emission rates to zero or below in the future. It is simply the empirical observation based on current data that Sweden’s emission of about 5 tonnes CO2 (eq) /person/year is about as low as fully developed nations are currently able to achieve.

To investigate the Swedish performance, let’s attempt a bottom up analysis of the emissions that make up the 5.1 tonnes of CO2 (eq)/person/year.  Statistics for the Swedish consumption of coal, refined petroleum products (gasoline, diesel and aviation fuel) and natural gas are readily available and as shown in Table 2 these can be used to calculate emission estimates that correspond quite neatly to the total provided in Table 1.  Furthermore a rough calculation of the methane and NO2 emissions from Sweden’s livestock herds covers a reasonable portion of the non CO2 emissions. I am sure that this analysis would not meet UNIPCC reporting standards but Table 2 provides a workable high level breakdown of Sweden’s “best practice” emissions performance

Table 2 Breakdown of Swedish GHG emissions

1.  2 million tonnes/year of metallurgical coal is used in Sweden to produce about 5 million tonnes of steel/year. 
2. The per capita consumption rate of refined petroleum products is similar to several other developed nations as will be discussed further below.  
3. While Sweden has no gas fired power plants, the negligible use of natural gas is surprising as natural gas is often also used for household heating and it can get pretty cold in Sweden 

To explain why Australia has emissions much higher than Sweden (and other, mostly European, countries with low emissions), we start by looking at how Sweden generates electricity.  While Swedish per capita power generation is quite high (30% higher than Australia), essentially all its electricity comes from zero carbon technologies. Swedish generation is currently 41% nuclear, 41% hydro, 10% wind and solar and 8% biomass (wood pellets) and has been carbon free since about the early 1980’s when nuclear power plants were built to supplement existing hydroelectric installations.  There were plans to shut the nuclear plants by the early 2020’s but these plans were recently reversed along with a tax on nuclear power that had been used to fund renewables. While the history of the Swedish power sector and the role of nuclear makes interesting reading, the bottom line for us is that Sweden has historically had zero carbon electricity and this is one key element in its “best practice” emissions performance.

Looking more widely at the link between power generation technology and emission levels, the nations in Table 1 with the highest levels of carbon free electricity were, in order, Sweden, Switzerland, Norway and France (all of whom rely predominantly on nuclear and/or hydropower) while those with the highest reliance on coal and gas were Australia, Japan, Germany, USA and Russia. In broad terms it is clear that even a partial reliance on fossil fuels for power generation adds 2-3 tonnes of CO2 (eq)/person/year to the GHG emission rate.  For countries highly dependent on fossil fuels (like Australia) the impact is more like 4-6 tonnes CO2(eq)/person/year.

Turning to refined fuel consumption, Sweden has a per capita consumption (4) of about 1600 litres/person/year.  Sweden is not unique at this level – quite a few other developed nations have similar consumption rates. There are also plenty of other nations that use less than about 1600 lities/person/year but these are inevitably developing nations for whom rates of vehicle ownership and industrial activity are much lower.  In terms of the transport sector emissions, it seems that Sweden is pretty close to “best practice”, with the potential to further reduce emissions as electric vehicles become more affordable (or more generously subsidised).  

Nations with significantly higher levels of refined petroleum consumption seem to fit into one or more of the following categories – nations that are physically much larger and less densely populated than Sweden and the other low consumption nations, island nations and/or nations that contain major shipping ports (for example Netherlands and Singapore), major middle east oil producing nations with heavily subsidised gasoline pricing (Saudi Arabia and Kuwait) and those with industrial sectors that consume significant quantities of refined products.  Canada and Australia, which have refined petroleum consumption rates of 3850 litres/person/year and 2700 litres/person/year respectively, are not only large and sparsely populated but also support fuel intensive, export oriented industries such as the mining and refining of metals and energy products as well as high levels of livestock and grain production.

In terms of emissions from the transport sector, there are structural advantages helping small, densely populated nations whose economy and industry are either less energy intensive or less export focussed (or both).  In the future these advantages will presumably decline with the introduction of more fuel efficient vehicles, electrification and greater use of public transport. Until this happens, however, Australia’s emissions will be higher by about 3-4 tonnes CO2(eq)/person/year as a result of its size, population density and industrial activity.

Finally there is natural gas and this is an area where Sweden really stands out.  While nations with large nuclear fleets and/or hydro schemes can avoid using gas for power generation, they typically need to use some for industry and home heating.  The difference in natural gas consumption is the main reason we are using Sweden as our “best practice” example and not Norway or even France, both of which have low carbon electricity and similar refined petroleum consumption rates.  To be completely fair to Sweden, it is also not a particularly densely populated country – not in comparison with Japan or Switzerland – and it has a reasonable industrial base including iron ore mining and vehicle manufacturing so in addition to eliminating the need for natural gas they seem to be doing a few things pretty well from an emissions perspective.  With a relatively high per capita electricity consumption rate (30% higher than Australia) perhaps they favour electricity over gas for applications where this is possible.

Legacy plays a strong role in the energy choices of most nations.  Nations with lots of coal use coal, those with generous hydro potential typically harnessed this decades ago and in the 1970’s many nations needing additional capacity chose nuclear.  The same applies to natural gas – Canada produces a lot of natural gas and is also a world leader in gas consumption. While they no longer use it extensively for power generation it is used as an industrial feedstock, as an industrial energy source (including the refining of oil sands) and for domestic heating (an important issue for Canadians).  USA, Russia and middle eastern nations are all also heavy gas users for similar reasons. Australia’s gas consumption is more modest but it still adds about 4 tonnes CO2 (eq)/person/year to its emissions.

Summarising the difference in direct CO2 emissions from the consumption of fossil fuels between Australia and Sweden one gets:

Power Sector: additional ~6 tonnes CO2(eq)/person/year

Refined Petroleum: additional ~3.5 tonnes CO2 (eq)/person/year

Natural Gas: additional ~4 tonnes CO2 (eq)/person/year

The final step in analysing the emissions gap between Australia and Sweden is to a look at emissions from the livestock sector, which as you will recall, made a modest contribution to Sweden’s total.  In doing this I am going to include New Zealand in the discussion which, as shown in Table 1, has a relatively low CO2 emission rate but a markedly higher proportion of non CO2 emissions as shown by the ratio of CO2(eq)/CO2 emissions.

Globally, 7.7 billion humans own about 2.5 billion cattle, sheep and goats.  The methane and NO2 produced from domestically raised ruminants is responsible for about 5.5% of global GHG emissions.  There are associated transportation and processing emissions but for our comparison these are included in direct fossil fuel consumption data.  The global livestock population ratio (number of humans/number of cows sheep and goats) is about 0.33. In Sweden this ratio is about 0.21 so a little below the global average.  In New Zealand this ratio is 6.9 or over 20 times the global average. This provides a clear explanation for New Zealand’s disproportionately high non CO2 emissions and an outsized contribution of ~ 9 tonnes CO2(eq)/person/tonne to its overall GHG emissions.  This results in New Zealand having a relatively high GHG emission rate of 16.5 tonnes CO2 (eq)/person/year despite generating 80% of its electricity from zero carbon hydropower.  

Australia actually has over three times the cattle and sheep population of New Zealand but with a significantly larger population livestock this adds about 4.5 tonnes of CO2 (eq)/person/year to the nation’s total emissions.  This is about 4.0 tonnes CO2 (eq)/person/year more than Sweden so adding the impact of methane and NO2 from Australia’s much larger livestock herds to the difference in fossil fuel consumption just about explains the difference in GHG emissions between Sweden and Australia. Before we look at how this comparison helps frame the challenges developed nations like Australia will face in decarbonising its economy a couple of points need to be made.

Firstly there are many developing nations with emissions well below 5 tonnes CO2(eq)/person/year.  For example South Sudan, the nation with lowest per capita GDP, has an emission rate of only 0.1 tons CO2 (eq)/person/year. The simple fact of being a developed nation means a higher than average level of individual consumption and hence generally higher emissions.  This is exemplified by the OECD average emission rate which is well above the global average. A major global challenge is how developing nations improve their standard of living without following the same emission trajectory as the developed world. Some elements of this might work out ok – if renewables are now really the low cost generation option then one would expect developing nations to choose these over coal and gas. The same argument may even apply to electric vehicles if these can become cost effective quickly enough.  The toughest issue may be dealing with nations who will naturally seek to add more meat to their diets and hence increase their cattle, sheep and goat herds as they become more affluent.

Secondly we have spent some time looking at the emission rates from a range of developed nations – mostly Sweden and Australia but also New Zealand and Canada.  None of these countries have particularly large populations so in absolute terms what they do or don’t do is dwarfed by actions in China, India, Europe and the USA.  Chinese GHG emissions are currently over 25% of the global total and estimated to be around 10 tonnes CO2 (eq) /person/year. The bad news is that unlike Europe and the USA whose GHG emissions are dropping (slowly and off a high base), Chinese emissions continue to rise.  India is equally critical – its current emission rate is low, only about 2.5 tonnes CO2(eq)/person/year, but also increasing rapidly. Unless China starts to reduce its emissions and India is able to follow a lower trajectory than China, it will be very difficult to meet Paris targets (ie keep warming below 2 C).  This doesn’t mean Australia, Sweden and others have no role to play but don’t be surprised when elected officials from these countries compare their performance with Chinese and Indian leaders who oversee a third of the world’s population and a similar percentage of the world’s emissions

Ok – back to what we have learned comparing Sweden and Australia.  Firstly Sweden seems like a reasonable case study of a developed nation with low GHG emission levels.  Without seeking to be critical of Swedish climate ambition it is clear that their low emission rate owes as much to serendipity as active decarbonisation policies.  Their electrical grid is dominated by nuclear and large scale hydro that were built long before climate was a major issue. With 10% non hydro renewables Sweden has a lower fraction of its electricity from wind and solar than Australia (5) with this metric likely to favor Australia in the next 5-10 years as coal plants are retired and replaced with renewables.  For the Swedes, new wind and solar will presumably replace older nuclear plants which might be politically popular but wont impact GHG emissions.

In terms of refined petroleum and particularly natural gas usage, Sweden has a more impressive story to tell – the national consumption of natural gas is miniscule and they are able to achieve a comparatively modest consumption rate of refined petroleum without completely sacrificing industrial and agricultural output.  In addition about 9% of Sweden’s light vehicle fleet is now electrified. In comparison Australia uses lots of natural gas as well as 70% more refined petroleum than Sweden with electric vehicles only comprising a tiny fraction of the Australian light vehicle fleet. 

Countering this apparently dismal comparison, Australia’s natural gas and refined petroleum

consumption supports massive mining and agricultural industries with the bulk of this output being exported.  Australia produces 35% of the world’s iron ore, 30% of its bauxite and 5% of its wheat and coal. It is also home to 7.5% of the world’s sheep and 3% of its cattle.  In all these instances exports far outweigh domestic consumption. This gets us back to the GHG reporting discussion we had earlier – there is a strong and valid argument that a significant portion of Australia’s GHG emissions are made to satisfy demand from other nations.  The Chinese make the same argument over its (mostly coal powered) manufacturing sector which supplies much of the developed world, including Australia. Putting aside the complexity of trying to track emissions as a function of end use demand and consumption, it is fair to conclude that current GHG inventory measurement protocols favour nations without energy intensive, export focussed economies like Australia, Canada, New Zealand and China.    

If we look at what Sweden needs to do to further reduce emissions it seems pretty clear that they need to keep encouraging electric vehicles – not just light vehicles but also the larger commercial sized vehicles including those used in mining, forestry and agriculture.  While incentives to promote electrification will cost money, the burden of more electric vehicles shouldn’t mean one group of citizens will have to shoulder more than their share of the decarbonisation heavy lifting (this assumes they have appropriate safety nets for low income residents).  The harder stuff may come with whatever the next step needs to be – one assumes it might mean the focus shifts to forestry and land use issues and asking rural Swedes to accept stricter land use regulations and/or face threats to lumber based employment.  

In Australia the challenges are going to be much tougher – decarbonisation of the power sector will involve significant dislocation to coal mining communities in regional NSW, Queensland, Western Australia and Victoria as well as in towns that currently host coal and gas power plants.  The political impact will be lessened if a pathway is created that provides support for ongoing coal exports, most logically for Queensland metallurgical coal. Such a pathway would, however, need to recognise that international coal markets will eventually decline as the global power and steel sectors decarbonise.  The same applies to looking for reductions in Australia’s emissions from the agricultural sector – the politics of actively seeking to reduce the country’s cattle and sheep number will be brutal and will potentially ougher than the current coal debate. If some sort of coal exit plan is developed that recognises and compensates those most impacted by the loss of coal jobs there could be a template that can be applied to beef, diary and sheep production.  For both coal and agricultural products, Australia will need a political logic that differentiates between domestic and export markets, potentially encouraging reduced domestic consumption (especially for coal and natural gas) while continuing to accept and potentially support the export of these products even at reduced volumes. 

More generally, Australian emissions should eventually benefit from the deployment of electric or hydrogen based vehicles and in my opinion this is an area where Australian governments have been surprisingly slow to offer incentives.  Another area where Australia could show more strategic intent is greater support for Carbon Capture and Sequestration. Not only is this a key technology identified by the UNIPCC but it can potentially help decarbonise industries like the smelting of iron ore and the conversion of bauxite and alumina into aluminium which are economically important to Australia’s mining sector.  

The research for this article did not turn up any obvious examples of nations with low emissions  taking major decarbonisation actions that they knew would severely damage their economy. While there is ample rhetoric highlighting the potential and in some cases actual financial impact of global warming it seems this is more readily accepted than adopting CO2 mitigation steps that will have a significant, measurable and direct impact on national GDP or balance of trade figures.  Perhaps one could point to Germany’s coal exit plan as an exception but this is effectively a 20 year plan to exit a heavily subsidised industry with no export focus and a limited future independent of climate action. While not seeking to downplay the significance and political creativity of the coal exit plan it would not compare to Australian making a unilateral decision to cease the export of coal or natural gas.  Or for that matter New Zealand reducing its livestock herds by 50% or the Canadians phasing out oil sand extraction by 2030. Perhaps these sort of bold and seemingly politically suicidal steps are in the future but historically (and in the immediate future) decarbonisation actions have been politically realistic and have avoided wiping out economically important industries. Climate actions to date have mostly been to add renewables and to a lesser extent encourage electric vehicles both of which are rapidly becoming cost competitive with fossil fuel alternatives and have political cover from the fact that any negative impacts are spread over the widest possible fraction of the population.

It is hard to see a decarbonisation pathway for Australia that does not see damage to economically and politically important export industries – whether the result of unilateral local policies or more likely the result of declining customer demand.  Optimists point to the potential for Australia to develop new export industries based on renewable energy. The production of green hydrogen by electrolysis is the opportunity favoured by Chief Scientist Alan Finkel (6). On paper this is a great idea but the challenge will be to get the timing right so that, for example, green hydrogen exports are ready to roll as thermal coal and agricultural exports begin to decline.  Getting these timelines to align currently seems like a tall order. 

One could go on but it is a little sobering to consider the relatively easier pathway facing the Swedes whose toughest short term decision might be the keep their nuclear plants running – a discussion they appear to have resolved.  Australia on the other hand has much more to do both in terms of actions to reduce fully domestic emissions (eg the use of coal for domestic power) but also to prepare its communities and national balance sheet for potentially sharp declines in consumption for its primary products.  Coal mining towns feel that many inner city activists are asking them to take a hit for the great global good – I think they have this right but if we are to get to net zero by 2050 there will be plenty of pain to go around. This means plenty of opportunity for anti decarbonisation forces to garner support.

1. https://journeytozerocarbon.com/2020/01/14/climate-catastrophe/

2. https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2016-05/global_emissions_gas_2015.png

3. https://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=AIR_GHG

4. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/266rank.html

5. https://www.cleanenergycouncil.org.au/resources/resources-hub/clean-energy-australia-report

6. https://www.chiefscientist.gov.au/news/hydrogen-australias-future