(Image: Adobe)

Countries have been lying to the United Nations about their greenhouse gas emissions.

Malaysia has claimed its trees are absorbing carbon four times faster than neighbouring Indonesia; Vietnam reported fluorinated gases emissions are 99.8% lower than other key scientific emissions data sets; the Central African Republic said its land absorbed enough carbon dioxide to offset the annual emissions of Russia; and Australia underreported its 2016 emissions of nitrous oxide gas by a factor of four to seven.

Underreporting of greenhouse gas emissions means the world is in a more dire place than thought, a Washington Post investigation has revealed. 

But emissions aren’t all that nations — and companies — are lying about. Here are some of the key examples of outright dishonesty and broken promises when it comes to climate targets. 

$100 billion climate finance 

In 2009, developed countries pledged US$100 billion annually in climate finance to help developing countries adapt to climate change. This wasn’t supposed to be charity, but reparations for the decades of emissions causing rising sea levels, extreme weather events and environmental devastation.

The money was supposed to be provided every year from 2020 to 2025. OECD countries missed that goal, providing just US$80 billion in 2020 with no formal deal on how much each country should pledge struck,

In a statement late last month, OECD secretary-general and former Australian minister for finance Mathias Cormann said there were a “variety of factors” that will influence when that cash will arrive, but that it was “vital for developing countries to have a good understanding of developed countries’ intentions [ahead of COP26]”.

Developing nations and environmental groups aren’t having a bar of it, demanding the targets be met and even more pledged as evidence of the drastic impact of climate change grows. 

Head in the sand on megafires 

The devastating bushfires of 2019 and 2020 burnt 18.6 million hectares of land, including 37% of NSW’s state national parks. It’s estimated around 830 million tonnes of carbon dioxide was emitted. 

But Australia is removing these emissions from its annual totals. Australia’s Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources has argued it uses a “smoothing process” to draw trends out of its forests over time using “an exploration of newly emerging modelling techniques”. 

Carbon capture and storage

One of Australia’s leading “climate policies” centres around climate capture storage — an initiative led by fossil fuel companies that claim facilities could capture C02 and stop it from being released into the atmosphere. 

But at full capacity, facilities are only capturing around 30% of emissions instead of the intended 80%. Despite the abysmal results, Australia this year pumped $263.7 million into the program, on top of the previous $1.3 billion given to fossil fuel companies. Embarrassingly, oil and gas company Santos featured prominently at Australia’s pavilion at the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow.

Kyoto carryover credits

In 2019, Australia attempted to dupe the system by using Kyoto carryover credits — historical emissions reductions that exceeded previous international targets — to meet its commitments under the Paris climate agreement. Brazil, India, and Ukraine soon attempted to follow Australia’s lead through the loophole.

Following immense international criticism, last year Prime Minister Scott Morrison proudly announced Australia would stop trying to cheat the system.