Tracking city carbon emissions

The City of Adelaide is internationally recognised for our commitment to report and reduce carbon emissions. Our community has a shared ambition for the city and North Adelaide to become a carbon neutral city.

As a community, we are taking action to reduce our emissions.

City-wide emissions have been decreasing, while the city itself has been growing.

Between 2007 and 2022 financial years our residential population grew by 41 per cent and Gross Regional Product increased by 58 per cent. See more economic and demographic insights.

Over this time overall greenhouse gas emissions decreased by 26 per cent.

• Emissions from electricity decreased by 62 per cent – primarily due to the State’s transition to renewable electricity
• Emissions from gas increased by 10 per cent
• Emissions from transport increased by 64 per cent – which reflects growth in city users
• In the financial year 2022, waste emissions make up about 5 per cent of the total, and the collection of this data is being improved.

Some other key points are:

• In financial year 2022, 36 per cent of the emissions were from commercial buildings and apartments, mostly due to electricity use. As South Australia switches to a greener grid, emissions due to electricity use are decreasing. Emissions from gas usage remain the same.
• Private car travel and aviation made up the majority of transport-related emissions. These emissions are more than trains, trucks, bus, and commercial vehicles combined.

The City of Adelaide has been tracking community greenhouse gas emissions through preparing inventories since 2007. In 2015, we established a shared ambition for our city to be carbon neutral.

The visualisations below provide a detailed breakdown of community greenhouse gas emissions for you to explore. 

Tips for reading the charts

• Use the arrows to scroll between the three pages.
• Click on any labels or charts to understand different measurements.
• Deep dive into emission sources or explore trends in energy and transport.

The City of Adelaide community greenhouse gas emissions inventory is prepared in accordance with the Global Protocol for Community Scale Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventories.

The protocol measures the emissions within the City of Adelaide boundary, using “scopes” which allows international comparisons (see definitions). This methodology is used to report internationally to the CDP platform (formerly Carbon Disclosure Project) on climate data and action.

Like many global cities, increases in some emissions sources are associated with growing populations and this is a world-wide challenge. See Adelaide’s journey to be a carbon neutral city, how we are reducing emissions from Council operations, and efforts to be climate ready.

The South Australian Government reports that over 70 per cent of South Australia’s electricity is provided by renewable sources, with period of 100 per cent. 

In 2022, Adelaide scored the top grade on climate action from the international reporting platform CDP (formerly Carbon Disclosure Project). This placed the City on the A-list, among the 142 best performing city climate actors globally.