"But Australia's total emissions are not reducing, nor are the emissions that are being exported to other countries via fossil fuels."
They aren't reducing in totality because Australia has over the past decade-and-a-half "imported" some 3 million people (a 14% increase in population) from other parts of the world, so the carbon emissions footprint of those people are no longer appearing in the emissions ledger of the countries from when they came.
So Australia is "hosting" 14% more of earth's inhabitants that it otherwise would have done, and is accounting for their added carbon footprint, yet without making any greater impost on the emissions level of the planet.
That's not doing nothing.
". emissions that are being exported to other countries via fossil fuels."
Well, to date, coal and LNG have been the energy type of choice - being relatively cheap and reliable - for the majority of developing countries [*].
And it is that demand from developing, and under-developed, countries as their economies industrialised and modernised that facilitated the improvement in the living standards of the people in those countries?
What would you have preferred happen instead?
That poorer countries of the world did not developed, and now cease developing?
"It's not as if it's not in Australia's best interest to go to carbon neutral/ emissions free."
Sure; Provided it is done properly, without harming the underlying economy and Australia's global competitiveness.
But that's an argument that is independent on Australia needing to do so in order to meaningfully impact total global emissions
[*] Don't get me wrong, I'm not neither an apologist nor a supporter of coal; I'm more than happy for renewable energy to dominate the world; heck, I'm proud to say that I have my roof adorned with solar panels for more than a decade; indeed, I was the first person on my street, and one of the first in my suburb, to install solar. I did so because I was affluent and could afford to do so...but the proportion of well-heeled, well-intentioned "Madamswer"equivalents in India, Indonesia, Turkey, Russia, Brazil, Mexico, Vietnam, Nigeria, Bangladesh, South Africa, Malaysia, etc. is inordinately low.
