The December edition of the Australian Energy Emissions Monitor consists of three sections. The first is an update of total emissions arising from consumption of electricity, gas and petroleum products in the five states of eastern Australia. The second looks more closely at month by month consumption of energy in each mainland National Electricity Market (NEM) state. The third is a response to the government's recent decision to sign on to the Global Methane Pledge by presenting graphs of sectoral source trends in Australia's methane emission since 2005.

Key points covered in this edition of the Monitor include:

• The most recent data show that moving annual consumption of both electricity and gas remains almost constant.
• Moving annual consumption of petroleum products, by contrast, increased sharply, as both passenger vehicle road transport and air transport rebounded towards pre-pandemic levels.
• On current longer term trends, within less than two years, consumption of petroleum fuels will overtake electricity generation as the largest source of fossil fuel greenhouse gas emissions in eastern Australia.
• In the whole month of November 2022, the renewable share of generation was 78% in SA, 45% in Victoria, 44% in the whole NEM (including Tasmania), 39% in NSW and, lagging well behind, 33% in Queensland.
• Furthermore, in Queensland, rooftop solar, i.e. investments by consumers, rather than electricity industry investor participants (of which the largest are state government owned businesses), contributed over half the total renewable generation, which is a much higher share than in any other state.
• The largest sources of methane emissions in 2019-20, in decreasing size order, were beef cattle, coal mining and sheep, contributing over 70% of total emissions.
• It is possible that improved methods for estimating coal mine methane emissions, now well underway, result in an increase in estimated emissions from open cut coal mines.

Download the December Australian Energy Emissions Monitor.

Download the data spreadsheet from the December 2022 Australian Energy Emissions Monitor.