Examining the Abatement Potential of Australia’s Capital Cities

From 'Examining the Abatement Potential of Australia’s Capital Cities by 2030' report by consultants Kinesis for Lord Mayor of Sydney, 11 August 2009

'The following paper considers what the effective emission reductions would be if all Australian cities implemented the actions (or similar) outlined in the Sustainable Sydney 2030 strategy.

Australia’s capital cities represent a significant source of Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions and its abatement potential. According to the Centre for International Economics Australia’s residential and commercial buildings are responsible for 23% of greenhouse gas emissions.

The City of Sydney’s Sustainable Sydney 2030 strategy aims to reduce Sydney’s greenhouse emissions through a range of interventions including trigeneration, building retrofits, simple transport improvements and renewable energy.

This study has found that if these actions were replicated across all of Australia’s capital cities over the next 20 years there would be approximately a 50% emission reduction against business as usual across major parts of Australia’s capital cities by 2030.

Studies have suggested that the price signal from the CPRS will reduce emissions across all of Australia’s buildings by an average of 8MT per year. This will result in a cumulative reduction of 135MT by 2030.

The analysis outlined in this report, shows that a targeted strategy to reduce emissions in only a select part of Australia’s capital cities, could reduce emissions by 48MT in the year 2030 and result in a cumulative emissions reduction of 540MT between 2010 and 2030; a factor of four improvement over the CPRS impact on Australia’s buildings.

These reductions result in a 4% reduction against projected 2020 level emissions. This is the equivalent of meeting one quarter of the Federal Government’s unconditional 2020 reduction target.'