Rising WA emissions a hurdle for Labor climate targets for 2030
Western Australia's emissions are set to derail national climate targets as Premier Roger Cook defends the state's ‘unique’ path focused on global decarbonisation efforts.
Western Australia’s rising emissions are set to sink the nation’s 2030 emissions reduction target and could also undermine the federal government’s soon-to-be-unveiled 2035 goal, with Roger Cook’s Labor government shaping as a “thorn in the side” of the Albanese government’s climate ambitions.
Mr Cook on Tuesday said WA would stay on its own “unique” emissions path focused on exporting the materials and products needed by the rest of the world to reduce their carbon footprint, even if it meant the state’s emissions failed to fall at anywhere near the levels needed under federal climate targets.
An analysis of national greenhouse accounts by The Australian shows WA is by far the biggest laggard in the federal push to reduce emissions by 2030, and is on track to be at least the main, if not the only, state that misses the target. WA needs to reduce its annual emissions by 15.3 tonnes per person by the end of the decade to comply with the target, almost five times the rate of the next-worst state of NSW.
With federal Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen preparing to announce a new 2035 climate change target this week, Mr Cook said his state’s focus would be not on reducing its own emissions, but instead on supporting global decarbonisation efforts.
He said critical minerals from WA would help in the manufacture of wind turbines and batteries around the world, while WA-made green steel could help displace dirtier steel manufacturing overseas. “That might mean that locally you see a slight uptick in emissions [in WA],” Mr Cook said. “So the globe is the winner, but you may see emissions locally rise slightly as part of that global response.”
His comments came just a day after the release of the National Climate Risk Assessment, which painted an alarming picture of the future for Australia under a warming climate. WA would be particularly affected under the assessment’s modelling, given the forecast impacts on agriculture, outdoor workers and the regions.
WA’s emissions performance is shaping as one of the biggest hurdles facing the Albanese government in its efforts to meet climate targets, and is the latest point of tension between WA Labor and its federal counterpart.
WA Greens MP Sophie McNeill told The Australian it was time for the Albanese government to pull WA into line, given the state is holding back the commonwealth’s ability to set an aggressive 2035 target.
“It is really clear that WA Labor is becoming a real thorn in the side of federal Labor,” she said. “How can federal Labor meet even their 2030 targets or set an ambitious 2035 target if you’ve got WA with rising emissions and refusing to do anything about it, and actually bragging about their emissions going up?
“It’s about time that Bowen had a really firm chat with Premier Cook, because how can federal Labor have any credibility on climate when they’ve got this problem child in WA who’s perfectly happy to just keep screwing it up for everyone? It’s really clear now that there’s such a divide between state and federal Labor.”
Under the current national emissions reduction plan, Australia is aiming to reduce its emissions by 43 per cent from 2005 levels. South Australia and Tasmania have already exceeded the target, while Queensland and Victoria are on a trajectory that should see them meet the 43 per cent level by the end of the decade. NSW has made headway but needs to increase the rate of cuts to meet the 2030 goal.
While 2005 represented an emissions high-water mark for most states, WA’s emissions climbed significantly in the subsequent years amid massive expansions of its iron ore and liquefied natural gas industries.
Iron ore generated more than $8.5bn in royalties for WA in the last financial year, while the state also collected $629m in grants linked to Woodside Energy’s North West Shelf LNG plant. The industries have also been major generators of revenue for the commonwealth.
Bill Hare, the chief executive and senior scientist at Climate Analytics, told The Australian that WA was “a major reason” why Australia would miss the 2030 target.
WA’s underperformance, he said, was a product of the expansion of its LNG industry since 2005, with the sector accounting for around 70 per cent of the increase in the state’s gross emissions over that time.
The Cook government late last year approved Woodside’s planned extension of the North West Shelf out to 2070, raising the ire of environmental groups, but has also committed to closing the last two state-owned coal-fired power stations in WA by 2030.
Mr Cook also noted that around one-third of the projects captured under the commonwealth’s safeguard mechanism – which requires them to reduce emissions over time – were in WA. He said the state’s approach to emissions would have to consider WA’s broader economic contribution.
“We are the biggest contributor to the national economy. We are the engine room of the national economy. We need to understand the impact of these things locally in terms of economic wellbeing, but also the impact on the national economy,” he said.
“So our part of the drive to reach net zero by 2050 in Australia will be unique in relation to the other states.”
While the federal Liberal Party is torn over whether to stick with a net-zero emissions policy, WA Liberal leader Basil Zempilas told the party’s state conference last month that the party needed to accept that West Australians “want to reduce emissions”.
He said the party’s focus would be on Labor’s delivery of its energy transition plans, which he said were unrealistic, unaffordable and would result in greater energy unreliability.
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