South Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions

The South Australian Government has set goals to reduce South Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions by more than 50% below 2005 levels by 2030, and to achieve net zero emissions by 2050.

Progress in reducing greenhouse gas emissions

South Australia is making good progress towards its greenhouse gas emissions reduction goals. In the 2020 financial year, South Australia emitted 25.4 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (MtCO₂-e). This represents a 31% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from the 2005 financial year.

South Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions inventory

The following greenhouse gas emissions information is provided by the Australian Government, which develops greenhouse gas inventories for all states and territories based on emission estimates in the National Inventory Report submitted to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) each year.

The Australian Government regularly revises the inventory emission factors and methodologies when new information or more accurate methodologies and data become available. When this occurs, they are required to revise the whole time series back to the 1990 financial year to ensure consistency. As a result, the revised inventory supersedes all previously published estimates and are not comparable year on year.

Sources of greenhouse gas emissions include the following:

Transport
Agriculture
Energy Industries
Other energy
Industrial processes
Fugitives
Waste
Land use, land use change and forestry (LULUCF)

Figure 1 below shows the contribution of each emission source to total net greenhouse gas emissions for South Australia in the 2020 financial year. Transport was the highest emitting source, with 25% of total net emissions. LULUCF includes both emissions sources and sinks (i.e. sequestration of carbon) and when combined provide a net figure.

South Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions — Figure 1: South Australia's greenhouse gas emissions in the 2020 financial year. Source: Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water.

Figure 2 below shows the change in greenhouse gas emissions in South Australia from each source from financial years 2005 to 2020, and the overall net emissions trend over this period.

Another way of presenting greenhouse gas emissions for South Australia is to breakdown emissions by key economic sector (Figure 3). This information is derived from the greenhouse gas information provided by the Australian Government:

In the 2020 financial year, South Australia contributed 5% to Australia’s total net greenhouse gas emissions. Figure 4 below shows that South Australia had the fourth lowest per capita emissions (14 tonnes of CO₂-e/person) compared to other states and territories. This is lower than the national average of 19 tonnes of CO₂-e/person.