Issue #70: A climate bomb
An extra 40 years of climate pollution
You’ve probably heard the bad news: Labor Environment Minister, Murray Watt, has granted conditional approval to extend the Woodside-operated North West Shelf gas project out to 2070.
But what does this actually mean?
The North West Shelf project consists of the Karratha gas plant - located on the Murujuga Cultural Landscape (Burrup Peninsula) - and several offshore gas platforms in the Carnarvon Basin, around 130km northwest from Karratha in north western Australia.
Woodside had a licence to operate the Karratha gas plant until 2030. Murray Watt has now approved the gas plant to operate until 2070.
💥 One of Australia's biggest polluters, for another 40 years!
An enormous amount of scope1 greenhouse pollution is released both through operating the gas plant and from emissions escaping the gas wells. It is the 9th largest scope1 emitter in Australia.
Even more greenhouse gas pollution is produced by the suppliers who provide resources (eg electricity) to the plant (scope2), which consumes huge amounts of energy converting the gas from the wells into a product for shipping or pipeline delivery.
And now it’s going to continue for another 40 years.
💥 Threat to Indigenous culture and heritage - part of our human story
The Murujuga Cultural Landscape is home to one of the largest, densest and most diverse collections of petroglyphs (rock art engravings) in the world. It has the oldest depictions of the human face in the world and records the lore and traditions of Aboriginal Australians since the first human settlement of this continent over 50,000 years ago. It is strikingly beautiful and is of enormous cultural and spiritual importance to the Traditional Owners. Tragically, an estimated 5,000 sacred rock art sites were destroyed during the construction of the Karratha Gas Plant in the 1980s. But there are still over one million individual ‘images’ in the landscape, making it a ‘living art gallery’ and a window onto our human history.
The Murujuga ancient Indigenous rock art remains under threat from the plant's close proximity. According to Murray Watt, his conditions in approving this expansion will protect the art but an archaeologist from WA’s university says that is by no means certain.
Once it's gone, it's gone.
Unfortunately, the extension has now torpedoed Murujuga Aboriginal Corporation's bid for World Heritage listing.
💥 World wide climate pollution for another 40 years!
Woodside doesn’t count the greenhouse gas pollution produced by Chinese, South Korean and Japanese customers when they use the gas (this pollution is officially described as ‘scope 3’ emissions). That climate heating pollution may be generated overseas, but it all contributes to heating our one global atmosphere. So we still cop the droughts, floods, fires and storms from increasing, unnatural weather disasters.
💥 Nothing to help gas prices
I can remember John Howard's big grin as he announced in 2002 a huge contract to supply LNG to China. However, as the price was guaranteed not to increase until 2031, by 2015 China was paying one-third of the price that Australian consumers pay.
Most of the gas is exported and none of the gas reaches the East Coast market. If it wasn't for former WA Labor Premier Alan Carpenter in 2006 stipulating that 15% of the gas be kept in Western Australia, that state would also be suffering high gas prices.
And to be clear, Australia is not suffering a gas shortage. Even Peter Dutton said it.
And to cap off this ridiculous situation, we now have a gas terminal at Port Kembla for the Eastern States to import gas - mostly our gas from WA sold back to us at a higher price!
💥 Pay less Tax than our nurses
Woodside claims it pays a lot of tax. Sure, it pays the sorts of tax that any company in Australia pays: corporate income tax, payroll tax, fringe benefits tax.
Additionally, it pays a Petroleum Resource Rent Tax (PRRT), a tax on profits which was supposedly designed to make sure all Australians benefited from the extraction and sale of our gas.
Woodside insists it pays its fair share. Its 2024 tax publication states it paid $3.15 billion in corporate income tax plus $936 million in PRRT, making it the largest payer of PRRT.
But you need to dig deeper to find the meaning of the numbers.
$3.15 billion corporate income tax on $3,152 billion revenue. That’s 0.1%.
Most of the $936 million PRRT comes from Bass Strait. Only $175 million is from the North West Shelf, due to the many loopholes it can exploit. That’s 0.006%.
In 2023-24 Australians paid more than 4 times on HECS/HELP (student loans) than gas companies did on PRRT. Nurses pay more tax than the gas industry.
💥 A climate bomb
The Browse Basin is an untapped gas reservoir offshore from Broome. Woodside (them again) proposed to build a natural gas plant at James Price Point, 52 kilometres north of Broome on the Dampier Peninsula. These plans have stalled for a decade due to cultural, environmental and economic concerns, but the project is not dead.
Now, the Karratha gas plant extension means a new gas plant is not required. They can pipe gas from the Browse Basin to Karratha instead. The gas plant needs Browse and Browse needs the gas plant.
But our planet cannot afford either!
💥 Our broken environment laws
Our broken environment law - the EPBC Act - does not require Murray Watt to consider climate impacts when making his decision! He was required to consider:
the potential impacts of extending the life of the plant on the national heritage values of nearby ancient rock art, and
economic and social matters concerning the proposed development.
Not any impact such as turbo-charging our heating climate!
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Climate Club News has written about the EPBC Act (eg Issue 44) and featured many actions calling to fix the EPBC Act. Perhaps now our Parliament can finally get on with these long overdue EPBC reforms.
And perhaps another big opportunity is for us to focus on the financial and environmental approvals that will be needed to get Browse off the ground. Without the Browse project, Karratha gas plant will not be viable.
So there is plenty still to do, in our ongoing quest to protect our planet.
What can you do today?
Clearly, our readers are concerned about the North West Shelf Project. A petition calling on Murray Watt to reject the project was our most accessed action in our previous edition (Issue #69 Where to from here?)
🐝 If you have 5 minutes:
Woodside, wasting no time, is already planning to drill the Browse Basin, endangering nearby pristine Scott’s Reef. WA's Environmental Protection Agency is taking submissions regarding the proposal. If we stop Browse, we stop the Karratha Gas Plant. The deadline is today, 10 June.
TODAY.
* Add your name to 5,239 signatures on Australian Conservation Foundation’s submission.
* Email a submission, pre-written by Greenpeace.
* If you have more time, write your own submission (take the text from the Greenpeace email).
Ahead of last year’s state election, the LNP promised to protect the Condamine Alluvium from new coal seam gas drilling. This basin supplies water to thousands of Darling Downs residents and to farmers of some of Australia’s best crop land. Six months on, the LNP’s promise remains unfulfilled.
Action: Many of you emailed the LNP (Issue #67) calling on them to protect the basin from Arrow Energy’s fracking plans. Reinforce this message by signing the Petition to Protect Queensland Farmland from coal seam gas.
The Qld Land Court has recommended the Central Queensland Ensham coal mine extension be refused due to climate impacts. This is a landmark decision - just the second time in history that the Qld Land Court has recommended refusal of a mining project on environmental grounds!
Action: Send an email to Qld Resources Minister Dale Last, urging him to accept the Land Court’s advice to reject this 20-year coal mine expansion.
Despite repeated promises by the LNP to continue funding the Environmental Defenders Office (EDO), the Crisafulli Government has announced it will not provide any funding.
Action: Send an email asking our Government to reinstate funding of this community legal centre that has helped over 50,000 Queenslanders protect their environment.
💃🏽 If you have 30 minutes or more:
Remember the extraordinary 2024 People’s Blockade of the world’s largest coal port in Newcastle last November (see Issue 59)? “Turning the Ship” is the film that tells the story. The highs, the lows and the triumphs!
Action: RSVP to see the film. Connect with the Brisbane Rising Tide community, celebrate the success of 2024 and be part of making the 2025 blockade the biggest and boldest yet. Friday June 20th, 6-9pm at the Food Connect Shed, Salisbury.
Qld Conservation Council has arranged with Brisbane City Council to light the Story Bridge and Victoria Bridge to represent the 'Warming Stripes'. Each stripe represents the average temperature for a year from 1850 to the present - cooler years in blue and hotter years in red.
Action: Join QCC at the #ShowYourStripes Day viewing and free barbeque at Kangaroo Point on Sun 22nd June.
Action: See what other actions you can take during the ShowYourStripes week of action between the 15th - 21st of June
I’ve written about this before: Some years ago, Labor Shadow Environment Minister Terri Butler told me she wasn’t hearing from her constituents about climate change. Former Federal Labor Senator Claire Moore told me we must tell our representatives about these issues, so they cannot claim it hasn’t been raised with them. Just last week, a lawyer from Ninox Law, representing Qld Conservation Council’s bid to stop the Lake Vermont Meadowbrook Project, said that politicians will be swayed if they hear enough voices. So make an appointment with your new Federal Member!
Action: Attend a webinar on How to Engage with Your Local MP. 6-7pm Tue 16 June
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Rob and I recently completed the Great Ocean Walk, along Victoria’s southern coastland. As well as balancing on the edge of cliffs, we saw the Conoco Phillips gas drilling well that was recently installed just off the coast from the Twelve Apostles.
That’s all for today, folks 👋🏽 Thanks for taking action.
See you in two weeks - Ron
plus Malcolm, Robyn and Jan - The Climate Club Qld team
We live, work and play on the lands of the Yuggara and Turrbal people in and around Magandjin - Brisbane. We pay respect to their Elders, past and present, and acknowledge that sovereignty was never ceded - always was, always will be Aboriginal land.
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