For as long as Australia has mass produced energy, coal has been the resource we have utilized the most. With growing concerns of climate change it would be in our government’s best interest to limit the usage of fossil fuels.

The fossil fuel industry has a large financial incentive to keep Australia reliant on energy generated from coal, today I will explore if they’re the government has our best interests at heart or if we have a bleak future ahead of us.

Figure 1. coal usage

source: Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and water

The above chart shows that the usage of black and brown coal slowly increased over time and is slowly tapering off in recent years. Australia has some of the largest brown coal reserves in the world with the reserve in Latrobe Valley containing 65 billion tonnes. Black coal is what is used most however as it is significantly more energy dense.

Now we’ll look into what could have caused the usage to taper off.

Figure 2. Labor vs Coalition Seat Ratio

source: Tally Room Archive

This is the chart of the ratio between the number of seats won by the labor party and the Coalition. The Coalition consists of the sum of the seats from all branches of the Liberals and the Nationals.

We can see here that the Coalition has been in power for the majority of the last two decades. Labor is only in power in the years where the ratio is above the horizontal line so they have only won 4 times in the last 12 elections.

The two charts are ever so slightly the inverse of each other, i.e coal has low points at the start and end and Labor has high points on those spots. Both parties are well known for being in support of fossil fuels, however the data shows that periods when Labor has been in power have shown a decrease in their usage.

This however may be explained better by something else.

Figure 3. Seats Held by Major Parties

source: Tally Room Archive

In this chart I’ve added the seats won by The Greens and this paints a better picture of what may be going on. The low point in the 90s may just be due to lower demand and it grew over time as Australia grew.

It seems as if the Greens got in at the perfect time, getting their first seat in a parliament where the two major parties are separated by one seat gives them immense power in being able to decide tiebreaker votes.

It is no coincidence that the greens got their first seat around the time coal usage started to taper off. This is further proven in the below chart.

Figure 4. Australia’s Sources of Energy

source: Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and water

There is a lot to explore here, firstly, after the 2010 election you can see all renewables increase dramatically. The usage of renewables has increased by a factor of 4 (+roughly 75k GWh), while fossil fuel usage has decreased by roughly 50k GWh. Despite holding such little power, it seems as if the greens have been successful in introducing more renewable energy to Australia in the form of solar and wind power.

Gas usage has been a major issue in recent years and the chart shows that it was increasing up until 2010 and has now settled. The landslide victory of Labor in the recent election is likely due to the Liberals sharing values with Trump. Such a victory may not be ideal however as this gives less power to the greens and could mean the party is more prone to corruption.

The data however seems to show that Australia is heading in a good direction. I’ll now close out by going over Australia’s emissions.

Figure 5. Austraalia’s emmisions

source: Australian Bureau of Statistics MtCO2-e is referencing the equivalent the number of mega-tonnes of CO2 that all greenhouse gasses make up.

This further proves that Australia may be headed in a positive direction. It should be noted that the chart shows a downwards trend and that trend has accelerated after 2010, further proving the greens are making a difference.