Analysis by The Australia Institute says the emissions from Woodside’s Burrup Hub expansion – which is on track to be waved through by federal Labor’s new environment minister – would be greater than all the emissions from all of Australia’s coal power stations each year.
Rod Campbell, research director at The Australia Institute said emissions from Western Australian gas exports “are making WA, Australia and the rest of the world hotter, and disasters like fires and floods more frequent and extreme.”
“Ordinary Western Australians are paying the price of the damage to our climate caused by multinational gas corporations exporting WA’s gas,” Campbell said.
“They are paying in higher insurance premiums, disaster costs and the erosion of our quality of life.”
Federal Labor’s newly appointed environment minister Murray Watt has been in Perth for talks with WA’s Labor government, along with industry, conservation and Indigenous groups, about Woodside’s extension plans.
Senator Watt had cleared the deck of last-minute challenges to a Woodside Energy proposal to extend the life of the ageing gas processing facility out past 2070 and says he will make a decision to approve or reject it by May 31.
Environmental groups who had written to the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (DCCEEW) asking the minister to reconsider the proposal have had their applications rejected.
An application by Greenpeace was rejected on the basis that it “did not include any substantial new information” about the possible impacts on listed threatened species and communities, listed migratory species or Commonwealth Marine Areas.
Another request by the Environmental Council of Central Queensland (ECoCeQ) asking the minister to reconsider the climate impacts of the development was also refused.
But news emerged on Friday that a Traditional Owner has launched legal action to compel Watt to act on her bid to protect sacred rock art, creating a potential hurdle to his decision process.
Mardathoonera woman Raelene Cooper wants the Senator to make a determination on her application to protect Murujuga rock art from the impacts of industrial developments at Woodside’s Burrup Hub, which includes North West Shelf.
Cooper says the federal government has ignored her application for three years and she is “sick of waiting” for it to do its job, prompting her application to the Federal Court.
“Now I understand the new minister is preparing to approve Woodside’s North West Shelf extension, which will be a death sentence for the oldest and largest rock art site on earth,” she said.
ECoCeQ spokesperson Christine Carlisle said the minister had “squandered” a “rare opportunity to tackle climate change” with his first significant decision.
“The politics is not easy. Standing up to the mining lobby is not easy. But the science is clear,” Carlisle said.
Greenpeace Australia’s Pacific WA campaigner, Geoff Bice, described the North West Shelf facility as “one of Australia’s dirtiest and most polluting fossil fuel projects” and said the minister “should be looking at these gas mega projects as a whole, rather than broken into arbitrary pieces”.
“If we are serious about tackling climate pollution and protecting nature, we should be closing down polluting fossil fuel facilities when they come to their end of life, not extending them to allow for new gas fields to open,” Bice said.
Speaking to ABC radio in Perth on Thursday, the newly-appointed environment minister said a formal decision would be made “in the next few days”.
“One thing I can guarantee you is that whatever decision I make, there’ll be lots of people unhappy on either side of the debate, but that’s just the nature of the job,” he said.
The Queensland Senator visited Western Australia’s northern Pilbara region earlier this week to meet with stakeholders, at the same time as four people have died in devastating flooding in parts of the New South Wales mid-north coast.
His visit did not include meetings with representatives from the Murujuga Aboriginal Corporation and the Ngarluma-Yindjibarndi Foundation (NYFL), who represent the two Indigenous groups affected by the decision.
Speaking to ABC Pilbara radio on Thursday NYFL CEO Sean-Paul Stephens said former Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek’s office had taken steps to engage with Traditional owners but not the new minister.
He added Traditional Owners “would have preferred” to meet earlier in the week.
“It’s absolutely our expectation that the minister reaches out and connects to our organisation and proactively has a conversation about this,” Stephens said.
“Generally, the consensus is, from the Traditional Owner community, is that any decisions that affect country and the social, cultural and economic wellbeing of the First Nations community should be made, or at least be informed, whilst on country.”
The Burrup Peninsula, where Woodside’s gas plants operate, is home to an extensive outdoor gallery of ancient rock art thought to be more than 50,000 years old. The Murujuga rock art is currently being considered for a World Heritage Listing that would protect it in the same way as the Pyramids of Giza, Stonehenge and the Taj Mahal.
Indigenous groups, activists and researchers say industrialisation of the area, including the operation of Woodside’s gas processing facilities, is creating pollution that, cumulatively, is corroding the rock art.
The North West Shelf gas project represented one of Australia’s biggest and most complex offshore resource developments that began in the 1980s. The multi-billion-dollar project involved the extraction of gas from offshore fields that were then transferred to processing plants in Karratha.
With the field now depleted, Woodside has been seeking to re-purpose its remaining plant to process gas from other fields under development or expected to come online, including the Browse development near the Scott Reef, a sensitive marine area.
First proposed in 2018, the proposal to extend the life of the processing facilities out to 2070 has been met with opposition from climate, environment and Indigenous groups over concerns about the environmental and heritage impact on the nearby area.
A successful decision would represent a significant step towards enabling the Browse development to go ahead.
In 2021, the International Energy Agency said that the world had enough oil, gas and coal projects operational to meet its needs and there could be no new fossil fuel investment from the end of that year if the 2050 net zero target established under the Paris Climate Goals could be met.
Climate Council CEO Amanda McKenzie said the facility would emit 4.4 billion tonnes in emissions over its lifetime and that Labor’s landslide victory offered an opportunity for the government “to do what’s right”.
“Peter Dutton promised to approve this project before the last election. Voters rejected Dutton and the government must now reject this project too,” McKenzie said.
“Approving the North West Shelf extension would be a polluting stain on the Albanese Government’s climate and energy legacy – undermining all the strong progress made on renewable power.”
If greenlit, the project would represent the 27th fossil fuel approval given by the Albanese government since coming to office.
With additional reporting from Abe Madison, AAP
