The 6th National Communication resembles all the previous ones, reciting the same list of policies. They even include the East Coast Forestry Project, a feature of national communications for the past twenty years, and which has only planted 40,000 hectares out of its planned 200,000 (and that target has now been lowered - I guess they're finally admitting twenty years of failure). Most of the "policies" boil down to "we're spending money on research to avoid actually doing anything", but there are a couple of mind-bogglers: they include both the "Roads of National Significance" and the "Business Growth Agenda" mining programme as climate change measures. They are - but not positive ones.
Then there's the obvious gaping fiddle: projected forestry emissions assume a "midpoint" scenario with a carbon price of $12 per ton. Energy modelling assumes $5 per ton. Actual carbon prices are negligible, meaning we are currently in the "high" scenario and back to significant land-use change from carbon-absorbing trees to methane-emitting cows. This makes a difference of 2 millions tons to current emissions, and 6 million tons to our 2020 scenario.
And then there's the appalling news that 70% of the increase in emissions since the previous National Communication - about a million tons - is due to Methanex restarting methanol production. Allowing that to happen is looking like a really dumb idea; subsidising it like an even worse one.
As for the overall effect of these "policies":
Total gross emissions (excluding forestry) ‘with measures’ are projected to be 77,218.3 Gg CO2-e in 2020, 1 per cent lower (437.1 Gg CO2-e) than projected emissions ‘without measures’. Total net emissions, including forestry ‘with measures’ are projected to be 75,017.7 Gg CO2-e in 2020, 12 per cent lower (9,810.0 Gg CO2-e) than projected emissions ‘without measures’.
Quite apart from those forestry numbers being purest bullshit, compare that to the government's targets: an unconditional 5% reduction on 1990 emissions (56,658 Gg CO2-e) or a 10 - 20 percent reduction if conditions are met (53,676 - 47,712 Gg). Pretty obviously, we will fail to meet them. And because we have been locked out of international carbon markets, we will not be able to pretend otherwise.