The Australian Government has achieved a key milestone under its Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) with the cancellation of all Commonwealth-held Kyoto Protocol units.
Australia has now cancelled more than 700 million of Commonwealth-held Kyoto units. Each unit represents 1 tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent of emissions reduction that occurred before 2021. The cancelled units equate to one and a half year’s worth of Australia’s national emissions.
As part of Australia’s NDC under the Paris Agreement, Australia voluntarily committed to not use units surplus to our 2020 Cancun Agreement or Kyoto Protocol emission target requirements, to meet our Paris Agreement targets.
The Paris Agreement is a legally binding international treaty on climate change.
The Agreement strengthens global response to the threat of climate change by:
- holding the increase in global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels
- pursuing efforts to limit temperature increase to 1.5°C.
Under the Agreement, Australia must submit emissions reduction commitments. These are known as Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs).
