Frequently Asked Questions

What are fugitive emissions and why are they important?

Fugitive emissions are the unintentional release of gases during the extraction, processing, storage, transport and discharge of fossil fuels. Fugitive emissions from coal mining, and oil and gas production account for about eight per cent of Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions.

Because of this significant chunk of emissions, it has now been included in the Snapshot emissions profile. Fugitive emissions data comes from Australia’s National Greenhouse Accounts and is state level data (total fugitive emissions per state), separated into two different sectors: fugitive emissions from oil and natural gas and fugitive emissions from coal mining. In order to apportion the state level data to each Local Government Area, jobs data from ABS (and ANZSIC) is used as a proxy. That is, the amount of employees with relevant jobs in these sectors, based on the location of the job. Areas with a relatively high fugitive emissions footprint in Snapshot, indicatives high activity in fossil fuel industries.

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