Australia Introduces Mandatory Climate Reporting Laws

Australia has taken a significant step towards greater corporate transparency with the Senate's approval of the Treasury Laws Amendment Bill, which will require large companies to make climate-related disclosures. From 1 January 2025, Australia's largest companies, including listed companies, will have to comply with standardised climate risk reporting in line with international standards set by the ISSB.

This includes the phasing out of Method 1 (state-based emission factors) for estimating methane emissions from opencast mines covered by the Safeguard Mechanism from 1 July 2025. The Safeguard Mechanism is the Australian Government's policy for reducing emissions from the country's largest industrial facilities.

"This legislative move by Australia is a significant development
in the global effort to combat climate change. At DMT Group,
we recognise the importance of such regulations in promoting
corporate accountability and transparency. We are committed
to assisting companies with these new requirements and ensuring
they are well prepared for the upcoming reporting obligations,"

said Matt Boyer, General Manager of DMT Consulting Engineers Pty Ltd (Australia).

In July 2022, NASA's EMIT mission demonstrated remarkable success in identifying methane concentrations from industry. Currently, Australian regulations allow mines to choose their own methods for estimating methane emissions, leading to inconsistencies. The University of New South Wales outlined recent advances in methane detection technology at the International Future Mining Conference in Sydney earlier this month. These advances include the use of portable sensors, fixed UAVs, aircraft and satellite-based monitoring systems, as well as models to estimate the total volume of emissions from the spatially distributed concentrations measured by the sensors.

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Australia Introduces Mandatory Climate Reporting Laws

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