Canberra may not meet its 2020 emissions reduction target if greenhouse gases from vehicles continue to rise at present rates, a new report has warned.
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The ACT's latest greenhouse gas inventory figures show emissions fell to 3367.5 kilotonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2017-18, a 14 per cent decrease on 2016-17 levels.
Climate Change Minister Shane Rattenbury said this was the largest reduction in recent years and further falls are expected as the territory transitions to 100 per cent renewable energy.
However, emissions are still well off the 2020 target of 1918 kilotonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent, which is a 40 per cent decrease on 1990 levels.
Emissions fell across all categories except for the transport sector, which went up by 2.3 per cent.
Transport emissions have been increasing year on year, in line with rising fuel consumption across the country, and now account for 34 per cent of the territory's emissions.
However this year's increase was slightly higher than the previous year's rise, the report said.
"On the basis of the figures reported in this 2017-18 inventory, if emissions from all source of emissions other than electricity remain unchanged over the next two years, achieving zero emissions electricity will ensure that the ACT reaches its overall emission reduction target of 40 per cent below 1990 levels in 2020, though not by a wide margin," the report said.
"The major challenge to the ACT, as it is to Australia as a whole, is the continuing steady growth in transport emissions. If ACT transport emissions continue to grow at similar rates to those experienced over the past few years, the 2020 target will not be met, unless significant reductions are achieved in emissions from either natural gas use, or synthetic gas use, or both."
These are the only two emission sources in the ACT - other than electricity - large enough to be able to offset growing transport emissions, the report said.
Stationary energy is still the ACT's largest source of emissions at 54.7 per cent per cent, although it declined by 27 per cent from 2016-17 levels.
Mr Rattenbury said the increasing transport emissions were "the one area of concern for me" in the inventory, but government measures like light rail, the new bus network and switching their fleet to electric vehicles would help.
The draft transport strategy released last year also indicated the government was looking at road user pricing to fix congestion, and Mr Rattenbury said they would do more analysis on the proposal in coming months.
"Clearly the fact in the strategy means it’s being thought about and clearly it’s being thought about at a national level but there are real pluses and minuses to it," Mr Rattenbury said.
He said transport emissions were a "really challenging area" and no jurisdiction had the solution yet.
"It’s not a single thing, it will require more electric, and hydrogen vehicles to come into the market, it’ll require improved public transport, it goes to urban design, of people not needing to drive as much, of being able to live closer to where they work and more people walking and cycling which is great for our health as well so a whole suite of policies will be needed to tackle transport emissions," Mr Rattenbury said.
Natural gas emissions fell by 3.8 per cent, which Mr Rattenbury said was "encouraging" as they would form a "significant part of our emissions after 2020".
Emissions from solid waste disposal were 31 per cent lower than in 2016-17, due to a 26 per cent increase in the volume of landfill gas captured and burnt at the Mugga Lane and Belconnen landfill gas generator.
The data in the latest greenhouse gas inventory was revised slightly upwards, due to higher estimates of synthetic gas emissions used in refrigerants in the ACT from the National Greenhouse Gas Inventory, which is compiled two years in arrears.
