Africa: Australia’s Exported Fossil Fuels Emit More Than 44 ‘Least Developed Countries’ Combined

COP31 co-host Australia’s fossil fuel exports produced more emissions than the combined 44 “least developed countries” in the 10 years since the Paris Agreement, a new Global Witness analysis of Australian government data can reveal

Following Paris’s landmark COP21 climate conference in 2015 – where countries agreed to make efforts to keep global heating below 1.5°C – Australia pledged to reduce emissions by 62%-70% below 2005 levels by 2035 and to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050.

As this year’s President of Negotiations for COP31, alongside co-host Türkiye, hopes are for Australia to shepherd more progressive outcomes on the climate crisis – including towards a global agreement on phasing out fossil fuels.

In one way, Australia can be seen to be working towards its Paris targets, albeit slowly: it has reduced its emissions domestically by 29% on 2005 levels.

But new Global Witness analysis of Australian government data reveals the country is doing far less to help the rest of the world get off fossil fuels, with Australia’s annual emissions from exported fossil fuels remaining vast and largely unchanged in the decade since COP21 in Paris.

Australia’s exported fossil fuels undermine domestic emissions reductions

Australia exports emissions by sending fossil fuels like coal, gas and oil to other countries.

Our analysis of official export records between January 2016 and March 2026 found that these represent 12.4 billion tonnes of climate-wrecking carbon emissions – around a third of the entire EU’s domestic emissions for the same period, or more than the combined domestic emissions of the world’s 44 “least developed countries.”

The analysis also finds that the Australian government expects to offshore a further 6.9 billion tonnes of emissions by 2031.

That would take the total emissions between 2016 and 2032 to 19.3 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent – a figure that equates to around 3.4% of the world’s remaining carbon budget (from a 2016 baseline) for a good chance of keeping global heating below 1.5°C.

Previous analysis by the non-profit think tank Climate Analytics has estimated that Australia was the third largest exporter of fossil fuels until 2024, behind only the USA and Russia.

Climate Analytics CEO Bill Hare told us: “Overall, I think it’s quite hypocritical of Australia, claiming that it is a global leader on climate action … It’s not doing that well on its domestic policies, and it’s going in completely the wrong direction on its fossil fuel exports.”

Australia’s national climate targets, which the latest official stocktake assessed as offtrack, regulate the country’s domestic use of fossil fuels.

Meanwhile, the country has continued to expand its domestic production of fossil fuels, including coal and gas. Across the decade of emissions that we analysed, Australia’s average annual export emissions were 2.5 times greater than its total domestic emissions last year.

Australia pursues more coal and gas production

Our new analysis has found that Australia’s exported emissions are dominated by coal, which accounts for around 78% of country’s exported emissions. Over 10 years, the emissions from coal exports alone were 9.7 gigatonnes – more than the annual energy-related 2024 emissions of the US, India and Japan combined.

The analysis also found that Australia oversaw a 73% increase of liquified natural gas (LNG) exports between 2016 and 2025, with the sharpest increases between 2016 and 2020 as a series of large new gas projects came online.

Despite its climate pledges, in 2024 Australia published a national gas strategy explicitly mapping out a future where it seeks new sources of gas supply and expands existing projects until 2050 and beyond. According to the latest data from the International Energy Agency, it is currently the seventh largest natural gas producer.

In May 2025, the Australian government gave a 40-year extension to the operation of the Woodside’s North West Shelf gas project, a move that think tank Climate Action Tracker has said “is incompatible with the Paris Agreement’s goals and with the government’s emission reduction commitments.”

At the end of September this year, the Australian government also approved an extension to 2045 for the operation of coal mines in eastern Australia’s Hunter Valley, potentially extracting a further 430 million tonnes of coal.

The Climate Council, an Australian NGO, called the project “a climate bomb that would supercharge climate disasters.”

Compromised leadership at COP

Campaigners have criticised the government’s pre-COP activity as “short on substance” and highlighted how Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s opening speech at the UN General Assembly was rich on the dangers of climate change but did not once mention its primary driver, fossil fuels.

Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters

Success!