The Australian Government has met its emissions reduction target under the second commitment period (CP2) of the
Kyoto Protocol.
As part of its
Nationally Determined Contribution under the Paris Agreement, Australia voluntarily committed not to use Commonwealth held Kyoto units surplus to our 2020
Cancun Agreement or
Kyoto Protocol emission target requirements, to meet its Paris Agreement targets.
The Clean Energy Regulator carried out several key accounting transactions through the
Australian National Registry of Emissions Units (ANREU) to show Australia meeting its international commitments.
Kyoto units are issued in accordance with the
Kyoto Protocol Rules. Each unit represents 1 tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO2-e).
Kyoto units are
not the same as Kyoto Australian carbon credit units (Kyoto ACCUs). Kyoto ACCUs are Australia’s domestic unit issued under the
ACCU Scheme. The transactions were done before the deadline of 9 September 2023, during the
'true-up period'.
The key transactions were:
- retiring a total of 4,229,526,447 CP2 Assigned Amount Units (AAUs) and 86,480,473 CP2
Removal Units (RMUs) – equivalent to Australia's cumulative greenhouse gas emissions during CP2
- cancelling 127,650,775 CP1 AAUs and 21,768,290
Certified Emission Reduction (CER) units
-
voluntarily cancelling all remaining 545,555,875 RMUs and 6,720,688 CERs.
The Commonwealth Holding Account in the ANREU now holds no Kyoto units. Kyoto unit holdings in all ANREU accounts are published under
Public Reports.
An international review process in early 2024 will confirm Australia’s compliance with the CP2 target.