Greenhouse gas emissions from Australia on the rise: report

Source: Xinhua| 2019-03-01 12:34:41|Editor: Yamei
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CANBERRA, March 1 (Xinhua) -- Australia's greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise despite a significant reduction in those from electricity.

A Department of Environment and Energy report released on Thursday evening said that total emissions rose nearly 1 percent, or 4.6 million tonnes, to 536 million tonnes in the year to September 2018.

It comes after Prime Minister Scott Morrison spent the week announcing funding for a host of renewable energy projects in the lead-up to May's general election and showed Australia has a lot of work to do in reducing its carbon footprint.

Emissions from the electricity and agriculture sectors fell 3.2 and 3 percent respectively but were offset by significant increases in mining and manufacturing.

Liquefied natural gas (LNG) emissions rose 19.7 percent, steel production 10 percent and aluminium production 5.5 percent.

"Growth in LNG also strongly impacted fugitive emissions due to the flaring and venting of methane and carbon dioxide," the report said.

"An increase in 10 percent in steel production in particular affected industrial process emissions," the report said.

The reduction in emissions in the energy sector was attributed to the amount of energy produced by burning brown coal falling 12.3 percent while supply from renewable sources rose 14.2 percent.

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