Australia’s population continued to grow in 2024, but greenhouse gas emissions declined slightly.
AustraliaAustralia’s population grew by 2.0%, or more than 527 thousand people, to reach 27.5 million people by the end of 2024. Population growth was slightly less than the preceding two years but higher than the 2000- 2023 average.
Building approvals provide a ready, if imperfect, measure of land and resource use for construction. Approvals in 2024 increased by 3.9% from the previous year. This marked the first increase in approvals since 2021 but remained 5% below the 2000-2023 average and the second-lowest since 2013, after 2023.
Greenhouse gas emissions (not including land use change) decreased by 0.6% from the previous year but were still higher than in 2022. They were 2.3% below the 2000–2023 average.
Compared to the previous year, emissions decreased from stationary energy use (-3.0%), industrial processes (-2.3%) and to a lesser extent, agriculture (-0.6%) and electricity generation (-0.2%). However, emissions increased from transport (+1.4%), waste (+1.0%) and fugitives (+0.5%). The increase in transport emissions alone more than offset the reductions achieved in other sectors.
As a result of population growth in 2024, emissions per person fell slightly by -2.5% from the previous year, to 19.3 tonnes CO2-eq, 27% below the peak of per-capita emissions around 2000–2005.
Australia is the world’s 15th largest emitter, contributing about 1.4% of global emissions in 2024, not including land use change. Per capita, Australians are the 10th worst greenhouse gas emitters, just after Saudi Arabia. The average Australian resident emits 3.3 times more than the global average and 2 times more than the average Chinese resident.
