Peabody Energy, a US coal mining behemoth, has deliberately submitted false greenhouse gas emissions reports to the Australian government, raising concerns about the validity of national climate statistics based on industry evaluations.

Unsurprisingly, Peabody had a history of making erroneous reports - as submitting reports is mandated by the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Act - due to “calculation errors, poor record-keeping, and inconsistent data collection and analysis”, according to the Clean Energy Regulator.

Deliberate “mistakes” were made in both directions, resulting in severe under- and over-reporting of emissions from New South Wales' underground Wambo coal mine. The cumulative inaccuracy was significant – accounting for more than 51% of the site's total emissions – but the under- and over-reporting generally canceled each other out. As a result, the total submitted was 5.4 percent lower than it should have been.

US giant: Not environment-friendly

Peabody has two thermal coal mines (used for electricity generation) and five metallurgical coal mines in Australia, making it the sixth-largest coalminer in the country (for steelmaking).

The US giant company claims to employ an outside consultant to compile its emissions reports using industry “best-practice reporting procedures”, as well as appoint an independent auditor to inspect its mines and other amenities.

On her account, the Australian Conservation Foundation's principal environmental investigator, Annica Schoo, said there were "more and more examples" of corporations submitting emissions statistics that did not hold up to inspection.

It comes after Dutch scientists examined satellite photos and discovered that the amount of methane leaking from several Queensland coal mines was higher than previously reported.

“The accuracy of this data is critical to getting on top of the climate crisis. The lack of care Peabody has shown is completely unacceptable,” she stressed.

Meanwhile, a spokesperson for Peabody claimed that “the reporting issues identified were completely unintentional and the result of calculation errors, which we have taken immediate actions to rectify.”

However, the climate and energy program director with the Australia Institute Richie Merzian stressed that the “enforceable undertakings” agreed by Peabody following the exposed failures were a sample of the regulator being “all bark and no bite”.

“We are left with rising emissions from Australia’s major polluters, enabled by loose reporting requirements,” he added.