The new environment minister has wasted no time getting stuck into one of his portfolio’s most controversial tasks, approving a massive gas project extension. Zacharias Szumer reports.
It didn’t take long, the Albanese government’s fossil fuel approval tally has risen to 19 after Murray Watt approved a 40-year extension of Woodside’s North-West Shelf project, one of the biggest emitters of C02 in Australia.
The West Australian project, which includes a network of offshore oil and gas infrastructure and an onshore processing facility, has had its allowed operating life extended from 2030 to 2070.
The Australia Institute says the project would emit an estimated 4.3 billion tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions between now and 2070,
equivalent to keeping 12 average-sized Australian coal power stations operating until that year.
“We would never consider allowing dozens of new coal power stations, yet Woodside’s gas export expansion plans would have even more emissions,” the institute’s research director, Rod Campbell, said.
While the project’s emissions are very relevant for our planet’s future, they aren’t for Watt’s decision, as the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act does not mandate consideration of a project’s impact on the climate.
Woodside’s North-West shelf project. Image: NOPSEMA
Safeguard mechanism ‘protection’
As a large industrial emitter, the North West Shelf is covered by the Safeguard Mechanism, Australia’s key emissions-reduction policy. This means Woodside has to either reduce the project’s emissions or offset them to below an annually decreasing baseline.
Recent analysis by the Australia Institute’s Ketan Joshi showed that Woodside met 100% of its Safeguard target for FY24 using carbon offsets. The North West Shelf project was also the single highest surrenderer of carbon offsets in that year.
Eighty-five percent of the offsets surrendered to cover North West Shelf emissions came from “highly suspicious methods” such as landfill gas, human-induced regeneration and avoided deforestation, Joshi wrote.
Image credit: Ketan Joshi / Australia Institute
The Albanese government twice delayed a final decision on the North West Shelf project until after the election, and Watt replacing former environment minister Tanya Plibersek. The proposed extension had been under assessment for six years, much to the ire of Woodside and their supporters.
In late April, MWM reported that the Albanese government had approved or extended at least 18 fossil fuel projects and two carbon capture projects since taking office.
MWM’s tally only includes extractive projects, not supporting infrastructure such as gas pipelines or railways for coal mines. It also only counts federal approvals, not those from state and territory governments.
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Zacharias Szumer is a freelance writer from Melbourne. In addition to Michael West Media, he has written for The Monthly, Overland, Jacobin, The Quietus, The South China Morning Post and other outlets.
He was also responsible for our War Power Reforms series.