Modelled 1.7C pathway cuts Australian coal exports 95% before 2040

The two Safeguard Mechanism numbers in the report measure different things. Across the scheme, industrial emissions appeared to fall 2.3% in 2025, against the 4.9% annual decline the pathway needs ^[16]. The tighter comparison is the second one: for the 196 facilities covered in both 2023-24 and 2024-25, combined emissions fell 0.4% ^[17]. Holding the facility list fixed removes the effect of plants entering and leaving the scheme, and 0.4% is about a twelfth of the required pace ^[4]. The report puts that down to offsets. The scheme's limits are legally binding on industrial facilities ^[15], but they bind net emissions, and companies have effectively unlimited offsets available ^[18], so a plant can comply without cutting what leaves the stack.

The other gaps are in percentage points. The pathway's 2030 figure for Australia is a 55% cut on 2005 levels ^[8]; the national target is 43%, which current policies barely reach ^[9], a difference of 12 points ^[1]. On electrification, current policies get electricity to 33% of national energy demand by 2035, where the pathway wants 50%, up from 25% in 2025 ^[12]. The goal Australia and Turkey are taking to COP31 is 35% by 2035 ^[13], two points above the business-as-usual projection ^[3].

The account of this work comes from one of the report's own authors, writing at phys.org ^[21]. The 1.7C peak is a global modelled outcome and it is conditional: the same pathway has net-zero greenhouse gases in the 2060s and warming back below 1.5C by 2100, and only if governments act urgently ^[3]. Australia's own share is roughly 4.5% of global carbon dioxide emissions, and it is one of the largest fossil fuel exporters ^[7]. The article does not say whether that share counts coal and gas burned after export. The scope matters, because the deepest cut in the Australian pathway is 95% off coal exports before 2040 ^[11].

A forming El Nino could temporarily push global warming toward 1.7C or 1.8C in 2027, with extreme heat and drought likely in Australia ^[20]. That is a single-year excursion. The peak warming the pathway is built around is a different figure.

Under current policies, the report projects Australia reaching 2050 with 245 million tonnes of residual emissions still to be offset, more than half of today's net emissions ^[10]. Taken at face value, that puts today's net figure below about 490 million tonnes ^[5]. Australia has signed transition-away language three times, at COP28 in 2023, in the Belem Declaration at COP30, and at the Santa Marta conference in April 2026 ^[5].

The Australian Energy Market Operator expects the country to miss its 82% renewables by 2030 target, which is nonbinding ^[14]. The report argues that making it binding could take the rollout to 96% renewables by 2035 ^[22], and it names the 2026-27 Safeguard Mechanism review as the moment to fix the offsets provision ^[19].