Greehouse gas emissions

Greenhouse gas emissions

As Australia transitions to a net-zero economy, there will be significant changes for the Hunter region. The dashboard includes the latest available data on emissions, and will incorporate energy statistics to reflect this transition. Local-scale GHG emissions are published with a lag of around three years. The NSW Government released its 2016 to 2023 estimates in July 2026, and this section has been updated to that release. All years are financial years: “2023” means the year ending June 2023. Headline totals exclude land use, land-use change and forestry, because this sector contains substantial and volatile net removals; the chart below shows it as its own net bar so the exclusion is visible.

In the year to June 2023, 44.6 Mt or 34.5% of NSW emissions were in the Hunter, down from 48.4 Mt and 37.1% in 2021. The region has 9.6% of the NSW population. Sixty-seven percent of Hunter emissions are due to electricity generation. An estimated 65% of the region’s electricity-generation emissions were associated with electricity exported to consumers outside the Hunter, where they are counted as scope 2 emissions. Excluding them leaves 25.4 Mt of emissions in the Hunter, still 19.6% of the state’s emissions.

On a per-capita basis, emissions in the Hunter are 55.8 t/capita, and, after adjusting for exported electricity to other users outside the region, 31.7 t/capita. NSW as a whole is 15.5 t/capita on the same basis, in the same year and from the same dataset. A comparison with the national inventory is not made here: it is compiled on a territorial basis and treats land use differently, so it is not like-for-like with a regional estimate that carries generation for export.

Progress in emissions reduction is being observed, particularly as some of the ageing coal-fired power stations in the region are either being retired or reducing their capacity utilisation. Hunter emissions in the year to June 2023 were about 5.7% lower than the year before and about 7.8% below 2021, primarily due to changes in electricity generation, with a notable decline in fugitive emissions from fuels as well.

Download the data behind this chart (CSV)

Data source: NSW Net Zero Emissions Dashboard

A more detailed view of emissions by sector is provided below. In this view, for electricity, so-called “scope 2” accounting is used, where emissions due to electricity generation are assigned to the electricity customer (and thus emissions due to electricity exported from the region are not included).

Download the data behind this chart (CSV)

Data source: NSW Net Zero Emissions Dashboard

Scope 3 GHG Emissions: Scope 3 covers other indirect upstream and downstream value-chain emissions, excluding the scope 2 emissions of purchased energy. This accounting of emissions provides a background to additional opportunities to decarbonise for industry, yet are often difficult to realise because of measurement issues and the need to involve multiple stakeholders. The Scope 3 emissions of industrial production in the Hunter have been estimated based on a unique combination of data from the EXIOBASE global MRIO model, national IO tables and local IO data from REMPLAN. The boundary is industrial production located in the Hunter, and the estimates exclude scope 1 and scope 2 emissions.

The chart below shows greenhouse gas emissions by aggregated source and destination sectors in the Hunter region. Emission sources are broken down by sector and colour: agriculture, forestry and fishing; mining; manufacturing; electricity and other utilities; construction; services; and transport. Further detail is available upon request, with emissions broken down into supply chains. The scope 3 emissions shown below exclude scope 1 and scope 2 emissions.

Manufacturing is the largest contributor to Scope 3 emissions in the region. The manufacturing sector’s Scope 3 emissions are close to 15 Mt of CO2-equivalent (CO2-e). Aggregate emissions are visible in the chart below, but due to the broad nature of the sector, these emissions are spread over many sources. Some key contributors to the results are scope 3 emissions from mining sources and from indirect electricity use due to non-ferrous metal manufacturing; agricultural emissions from meat product manufacturing; and emissions from cement and lime preparation for concrete manufacturing. The IRF provides insight into organisational scope 3 emissions in the region. Contact us below for more information.