AUSTRALIA's annual greenhouse gas emissions have soared by more than four-fifths since 1990 - far exceeding the 8 per cent permitted by the Kyoto Protocol.
The revelation comes as developed countries - led by Australia, Canada and the United States - are being accused by the Greens and other environmentalists of "cooking the books" on their emissions in a row that threatens to disrupt the Copenhagen climate talks.
The row is creating major divisions between developed and developing nations over how emissions from agriculture, grasslands and forestry will be counted in any new climate deal.
The 82 per cent rise in emissions is due to a blow-out of 657 per cent in emissions from land use between 1990 and 2007. Australia told the UN of it earlier this year but did not publicise it.
There is wild natural variation in land-use emissions - for example, there was a massive spike in 2002-03 from Victorian bushfires - and so Australia joined others in not counting most land categories towards its Kyoto target for 2012.
Under a new Copenhagen deal, it wants to be able to count "carbon sinks" in agricultural land but exclude the impact of extraordinary events or circumstances such as bushfires and drought. Environmentalists say it is hard to measure land-use emissions, opening up the possibility of "accounting frauds".
Miguel Lovera, chief negotiator for Paraguay, a member of the G77 bloc of developing countries, said the industrialised nations' position on land emissions was "suicidal". "With that kind of measure we are never going to make sensible action on climate change," he said.
The G77 wants a cap on the offsets that can be counted towards a national emissions target of about 2pc.
Greenpeace campaigner Paul Winn said the push to get the land-use rule changes into a new deal could lead to the "green-washing of Copenhagen".
"These are basically accounting frauds, they're shuffling the cards … the atmosphere doesn't see any difference to the emissions or removals that occur."
A source familiar with the Government's greenhouse accounting office said: "I would be suspicious of any accounting method in that [land] sector [as it] is a tactical one to reduce pressure on other emissions."
Greens climate change spokeswoman Senator Christine Milne said the land-use push appeared to be a repeat of a land-clearing "rort" won by Australia in the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.
A last-minute land-use rule change at Kyoto, called "the Australia clause", has been used to offset a rise of about 30 per cent in Australia's industrial greenhouse emissions since 1990.
"The United States has always wanted to use land-use [offsets] for not having to do as much in its fossil-fuel sector, and Australia has always been the fall guy for the US," Senator Milne said. "So I think what you are seeing is the umbrella group, chaired by Australia, including the US, including Canada, trying to really cook the books in some dodgy deals on land use."
In a move that has angered developing nations, Australia and New Zealand are refusing to place caps on the extent to which land-use offsets will be part of 2020 emissions cuts.
A spokesman for Climate Change Minister Penny Wong said Australia did not want to place a cap on emissions from land use that it could count under different circumstances. "Emission reductions from Australia's forest and agriculture sector are just as real as reductions in other sectors of the economy."
Guy Pearse is author of High and Dry and Quarry Vision.
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