Gas usage has peaked and is now in structural decline across Australia, report says

Grattan Institute calls on Labor to set policies that will further reduce the use of gas in order to meet net zero targets Sign up for climate and environment editor Adam Morton’s free Clear Air newsletter here After more than a half a century of growth, the use of gas in Australia has peaked in all sectors and entered a “structural decline”. But use will need to fall fast to meet climate targets, according to new research from an influential thinktank. The Grattan Institute warned the government had failed to acknowledge the decline and instead needed policies to further reduce gas use and avoid the need for expensive carbon capture technologies to meet net zero targets. “Gas is now in structural decline across Australia. There’s only one way to go from a peak, and that’s down,” said Alison Reeve, the director of the institute’s Energy and Climate Change program. Sign up to get climate and environment editor Adam Morton’s Clear Air column as a free newsletter Large scale use of gas took off in the 1960s in Australia, but the institute’s report showed residential gas use peaked in 2020, gas for electricity generation had declined 11% since 2014, gas use in manufacturing had been fa