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.
