The Western Australian Labor government appears all but certain to give one of Australia’s biggest greenhouse gas emitters the green light to operate until 2070 after it announced it would abolish state emissions-reduction requirements.
Scientists have warned the proposal to extend the life of the North West Shelf gas processing plant on the Burrup Peninsula in the country’s remote north-west is linked to the development of at least three major gas fields and could ultimately result in billions of tonnes of climate pollution being released into the atmosphere.
The WA Environment Protection Authority recommended in 2022 that the state approve a 50-year extension for the plant, which is run by the oil and gas company Woodside, as long as it progressively reduced its operating emissions. It could do that by making cuts onsite or paying for carbon offsets.
More than 750 organisations and individuals lodged appeals against the recommendation – a record for the state – citing its contribution to the climate crisis and potential damage to Indigenous rock art. The WA appeals convenor has been considering the objections since mid 2022.
But the WA government last month announced it would change rules so that the EPA would no longer regulate emissions from development proposals that released significant climate pollution.
The WA climate change minister, Reece Whitby, then wrote to people who lodged appeals against the North West Shelf extension, giving them under 8 November to respond.
Climate activists said the implicit message of the letter was that the state government planned to effectively abandon the years-long EPA process considering how to deal with emissions from the plant.
The Conservation Council of WA’s executive director, Jess Beckerling, said total emissions from the extension of fossil fuel operations on the Burrup Hub could reach 6bn tonnes once the gas was exported and burned overseas.
“The WA government has just stripped itself of the ability to effectively regulate the impact of climate change from the biggest fossil fuel projects in the country,” she said.
The WA government’s rationale for the change is that emissions released directly from developments within Australia – but not those released overseas – are covered by a federal government emissions policy, the safeguard mechanism. The extension also needs approval under federal conservation law.
A state government spokesperson said it was “focused on removing duplication that doesn’t deliver any additional environmental benefit”.
“Our expectation is the requirements for projects to reduce emissions through the safeguard mechanism will cumulatively result in the same if not stronger action on emissions,” they said. “It does not change our commitment to working with all sectors of the economy to achieve net zero emissions by 2050.”
But Piers Verstegen of WA-based Climate Safe Solutions said the change would likely lead to higher emissions as the state EPA’s recommendations could lead to more stringent cuts after 2030 than under the safeguard mechanism.
The safeguard mechanism requires Australia’s 215 biggest industrial emitting sites to cut their emissions intensity by 4.9% a year until 2030, but export facilities such as the North West Shelf could apply for a lower rate. The rate of emissions reduction for each site has not yet been released. Required cuts after 2030 will be set in 2027.
The state EPA’s recommendations in 2022 said the site should have to reduce its emissions progressively, with limits set in five-year blocks, to reach net zero by 2050. It said companies were expected to demonstrate that they were acting to first avoid, then reduce and finally offset emissions.
Guardian Australia asked the WA government if it had an analysis that showed there would be no greater climate impact once its regulations were removed and if that analysis was publicly available. It did not directly answer the question.
It said its decision followed a review of environmental approval processes and constitutional advice from the state’s solicitor general. Constitutional lawyers have responded that there was nothing to legally prevent state governments legislating to cut emissions.
The federal legislation governing the safeguard mechanism says it is “not intended to exclude or limit the operation of a law of a state or territory that is capable of operating concurrently” with it.
The removal of state emissions regulations was welcomed by Woodside, Australia’s biggest oil and gas company. It called on other states to remove climate regulations.
The Greens MP Brad Pettitt said the change showed the WA government was “not even pretending to try to reduce WA’s emissions any more”.
WA is the only Australian state without a 2030 emissions reduction target, and the only state in which climate pollution has increased over the past 20 years. National data says climate pollution in the five eastern states fell by at least 27% between 2005 and 2022 while rising 8% in WA, largely due to the state’s expanding gas export industry.
Pettitt said the state’s policy “can only have been influenced by one thing – big gas corporations who will save millions under the lower emissions standards required by the federal safeguard mechanism”.
“Western Australia’s sycophantic support of gas and lack of climate action is dragging down the whole country’s climate ambition and also slowing the uptake of renewable energy in Asia,” he said. “This is a globally irresponsible decision.”
Beckerling said: “The North West Shelf extension is Australia’s biggest climate decision and the WA government is trying to wash its hands of its responsibility to hold Woodside to account.”
