Australia is facing renewed international pressure to explain what it is doing to tackle climate change, with a United Nations review finding its emissions continue to soar and several countries calling for clarity about what it will do after 2020.
Countries including China and the US have put more than 30 questions to the Turnbull government, asking for detail about how Australia will meet its 2030 emissions target and raising concerns about a lack of transparency over how the government calculates and reports emissions.
It comes as the federal government has been facing calls at home - sparked by its own criticism of ambitious state renewable energy targets - to reveal what it would do on climate change and clean energy beyond 2020.
An expert review commissioned by the UN found, based on data submitted by Australia, its emissions would be 11.5 per cent higher in 2020 than they were in 1990.
Industrial emissions – not counting those from forestry and land-clearing – were expected to rise 33.5 per cent over the three decades.
The reviewers found a recent Australian report lacked transparency about how it estimated its future emissions. And they noted the report failed to mention the abolition of the carbon price scheme, or explain what impact scrapping the policy would have on it meeting targets.
Australia's previous report two years earlier put the carbon price at the centre of its response to global warming.
Separately, countries have put questions that Australia is expected to answer before the end-of-year climate summit in Morocco, including:
- China wanting to know what the repeal of the carbon price has done to Australia's emissions, and whether it has considered other approaches to carbon pricing.
- The US asking whether Australia is introducing any longer-term policies that will help it meet its 2030 target that it may not know about.
- New Zealand following up a pledge Australia made to release modelling this year of what its emissions would be in 2030.
Alden Meyer, of the US-based Union of Concerned Scientists, said the review and questions put to Australia made it made clear it was yet to convince the world it was up to playing its part in meeting the goals agreed at the Paris climate summit.
He said those goals implied reaching net zero emissions by mid-century. The Paris agreement will take effect next month after the world's biggest emitters ratified the deal more quickly than expected.
"The US, China, Europe and other major economies are clearly making low-carbon development a priority," Mr Meyer said.
Average global temperatures from 1880 to 2016 (covering January to June). Photo: NASA
"There will be diplomatic and economic consequences for any country that's perceived as not joining in this effort... That's a risk that Australia shouldn't, and doesn't need to, take."
Physicist Bill Hare, chief executive of Climate Action Tracker and an adviser to developing countries at climate negotiations, said the questions asked of Australia showed deep scepticism and frustration beneath a diplomatic veneer.
"It is very strange that the government had put forward no projections, which are the sine qua non [essential ingredient] of this area of policy," he said.
"It is as if the Treasury produce a report for the International Monetary Fund with no future numbers in it. It raises alarm bells."
A Climate Action Tracker analysis found Australia's emissions were headed to be more than 27 per cent greater than 2005 levels in 2030.
The Coalition's emissions targets are a 5 per cent cut by 2020 compared with 2000 levels, and a 26-28 per cent cut by 2030 compared with 2005 levels. It has committed to reviewing its climate policies next year.
Environment and Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg said Australia was making an important contribution to the global effort on climate change, and was on track to beat its 2020 Kyoto Protocol target.
He said Australia was in the process of ratifying the Paris agreement and its 2030 target was one of the highest in the G20 on a per capita basis.
"Whether it's through the ambitious set of targets we took to Paris or our significant levels of investment in renewables, we have a strong suite of policies to manage our transition to a lower emissions future," he said.
The UN expert review suggests Australia's emissions are likely to be higher in 2020 than in 2000, but this does not necessarily mean it would fail to meet its 2020 target. Under Kyoto Protocol rules, the target is measured against average emissions between 2013 and 2020.
The questions Australia is facing are part of an assessment introduced to boost transparency about climate policies. Australia received more questions than the other countries examined in the current assessment round, including most of Europe and New Zealand.
Some questions submitted included praise for what Australia is doing. Japan was impressed that Australia updates emissions projections nearly every year; Brazil offered congratulations that it had listed 26 actions to cut emissions, up from six in a previous report.
But Jake Schmidt, international program director with the US National Resources Defence Council, said many countries were questioning the disconnect between Australia's international targets and what it was doing at home, including expanding coal mines and cutting its incentives for renewable energy.
Climate Institute deputy chief executive Erwin Jackson said the scrutiny Australia was facing was an example of a new global reality.
"The world is moving inexorably into a future that will be driven by clean energy," he said.
Liz Gallagher, of British think tank E3G, said Australia had been a force for good at the Paris summit last December, but it needed to have a transparent and credible plan.
"Words are important but action is what matters," she said.
