Australia's greenhouse gas emissions up 0.8 pct in 2015-16: report

Australia's greenhouse gas emissions rose by 0.8 percent in the year ending June 2016, but the federal government has said the nation was still on track "to meet and beat" its 2020 emissions target.

The government on Friday released the Quarterly Update of Australia's National Greenhouse Gas Inventory: June 2016 report, which showed despite reducing emissions in the agriculture sector, emissions increased in the electricity and stationary energy sectors to result in a 0.8 percent overall rise.

Despite the negative result for the government, which has set an ambitious 2030 emissions target, Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg said Australia was making positive strides, explaining that both emissions per capita and emissions per unit of GDP were at 27-year low.

"Our policies, like the emissions reduction fund, are working to reduce Australia's emissions at low cost, without driving up the price of electricity like Labor's carbon tax did," Frydenberg was quoted by Fairfax Media on Friday.

According to the report, emissions per person was clocked at 23 tons of carbon dioxide, down from 26 tons 10 years ago.

The results come less than a month after Frydenberg floated the idea of a scaled-down emissions trading scheme to help Australia reach its emissions goals, but the plan was embarrassingly scrapped less than 48 hours later for not being aligned with the coalition government's policies on climate change. Endit