The Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts is conducting a review into the National Freight and Supply Chain Strategy. 

Climateworks supports the review of the Freight Strategy, in particular the ambition to incorporate thinking on decarbonisation. Australia has committed to the Paris Agreement goals of reducing CO2 emissions to limit global average temperature rise to well below 2 degrees, while pursuing further limiting temperature rise to 1.5°C.

Transport contributes approximately 20 per cent of Australia’s domestic emissions, and is likely to become the largest source of emissions by 2030.

Climateworks analysis has calculated that freight emissions account for just under 40 per cent of Australia’s transport emissions, equivalent to 7 per cent of total domestic emissions. This underscores the importance of embedding strategies to decarbonise the freight sector within the Freight Strategy.

This submission makes six key recommendations for consideration, leveraging our ongoing work in researching net zero pathways for the transport sector.

Climateworks recommends that the revised Freight Strategy:

  1. Include an explicit objective supporting transformative change in line with the Paris Agreement goals of limiting global warming to well below 2°C and striving for 1.5°C
  2. Adopt an integrated approach to decarbonisation, drawing on a range of decarbonisation measures, including but not limited to zero emissions trucks and vehicles
  3. Focus on reducing emissions from road freight, the source of most of Australia’s freight emissions
  4. Update the National Action Plan to include an additional critical action area to support the decarbonisation objectives of the Freight Strategy
  5. Implement existing solutions to decarbonise short-haul road freight, and integrate rail and other solutions to reduce emissions from long-haul road freight
  6. Increase the scope of emissions data collected to enable better emissions tracking and reporting.

These recommendations are discussed in further detail in the submission.