Australia’s total climate pollution remains extraordinarily high as increased coal and gas exports outpace emissions reductions at home

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Key points

• By far, Australia’s largest contribution to the climate crisis continues to be the production of fossil fuels for use overseas. In the 2026 financial year, Australia was the world’s largest exporter of metallurgical coal, and its second largest exporter of both thermal coal and liquefied gas (aka LNG). The climate crisis is driven first and foremost by the production and use of coal, oil and gas. Australia shares responsibility for the harm caused no matter where these are burned.
• Some progress in our emissions at home, but not enough. While the pace remains insufficient to meet either the country’s 2030 or 2035 climate targets, Australia has reported some small progress in reducing its net emissions at home. While increased penetration of renewable energy in the country’s electricity sector has played a minor role in recent years, the main cause of this reported reduction in net emissions is reduced clearing of remnant native forests
• In the past 20 years, climate pollution from the country’s exported fossil fuels – particularly coal and gas – has grown unchecked. That growth has vastly outpaced any change in emissions at home. Between the 2005 and 2020 financial years, emissions from Australia’s exported fossil fuels essentially doubled. While China’s temporary ban on Australian coal imports between 2020 and 2023 moderated that growth for a time. In recent years the country’s exported climate pollution has begun growing again.
• There are no planned reductions in sight for Australia’s fossil fuel exports. Official forecasts from the federal industry department predicting coal and gas production to continue at near today’s level until at least 2030.
• There is little prospect of global temperature increases staying within the boundaries set out by the Paris Agreement unless both supply and demand for coal, oil and gas are addressed in national policies.¹ Despite the critical need for the country to reduce both coal² and gas³ exports in a Paris-aligned world, Australia has no suitable policies to bring this about. It should also be noted that due to the impact fossil fuel production has on emissions at home, Treasury modelling for Australia’s 2035 climate target assumes drastic falls in the country’s total production of the fossil fuels.⁴ There is little prospect of the country reaching those goals without it.

Endnotes

1. Stockholm Environment Institute, IISD, & Climate Analytics. The Production Gap. https://productiongap.org/ (2025). 

2. Climate Resource. Australia’s Coal Outlook in a Warming World: Insights from Integrated Assessment Models. https://www.climate-resource.com/publications/australia-s-coal-outlook-in-a-warming-world (2025). 

3. Climate Resource. The Last LNG Train Home: Australia’s LNG Outlook in a Demand-Constrained World. https://www.climate-resource.com/news/the-last-lng-train-home (2026). 

4. The Commonwealth Treasury. Australia’s Net Zero Transformation: Treasury Modelling and Analysis. https://treasury.gov.au/publication/p2025-700922 (2025).