According to a new report commisioned by the Climate Institute, only two of the G20 countries are currently improving carbon productivity quickly enough to meet carbon reduction targets. What’s more surprising is that Australia ranks 15th in improving carbon productivity, lagged only by South Africa, India, Saudia Arabia and Indonesia. Although a part of this is due to ‘green-house intensive’ exports, the report also blames the use of cars and reliance on coal-based electricity:

(The report)… illustrates that there are a number of countries, including Turkey, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Australia and Canada, that are currently falling well short of the required improvement in carbon productivity and that require significant turnarounds in their performance. The longer these countries take to achieve these turnarounds, the more costly (economically, as well as socially and politically) the eventual transition will be.

(Click here for pdf of full report, or here for The Age newspaper report)