Australia risks mangling the brake and accelerator on climate

Resources Minister Madeleine King’s announcement of 10 new oil and gas sites for offshore exploration sent a shudder through the sprawling ecosystem of climate activists and scientists in Australia this week.

It was not just the fact that almost 50,000 square kilometres of undersea real estate in the waters off Victoria, Western Australia and the Northern Territory were slated by King that concerned people. It was the language she used in making the announcement, and the enthusiasm with which she echoed key talking points of the oil and gas industry.

LNG tanker Asia Excellence loads the inaugural cargo at Chevron’s Gorgon project in Western Australia.

King’s language was at odds with the government’s core climate message of a rapid march to net zero emissions.

“Gas enables greater use of renewables domestically by providing energy security. Australian [liquefied natural gas] is also a force for regional energy security and helps our trading partners meet their own decarbonisation goals,” King told a resources conference in Darwin.

Similarly, in a press release, she said ongoing investment in the petroleum sector was vital for energy security.

“At the same time as we strive to reduce emissions, it must be emphasised that continued exploration for oil and gas in Commonwealth waters is central to alleviating future domestic gas shortfalls,” she said.

She went further, too, announcing two new offshore zones for potential carbon capture and storage projects.

Speaking to ABC radio in Perth, King described carbon capture and storage as proven technology, and said she accepted that though carbon dioxide – the greenhouse gas all these projects would release into atmosphere – causes climate change, it is not “noxious”.

“It’s the bubbles in your soda water or out of your SodaStream,” she explained. “So, you know, we’ve got to keep it in balance, how we think about carbon dioxide.”

These points, apart from King’s observation about fizzy water, are at best contested outside the oil and gas industry.

Rather than exploring for new gas, Australia could ensure its energy security by selling less of our existing supply overseas.

Most experts do see a future for gas in decarbonising economies, but as a peaking technology to quickly kick in during short periods of high demand. The world cannot expect to meet its Paris Agreement targets and continue to expand the gas industry.

In 2021, the International Energy Agency said holding warming to 1.5 degrees demanded that no new oil and gas infrastructure should be built beyond that committed to last year.

Carbon capture and storage has never worked commercially at scale, despite the billions of dollars of public money shunted into it over decades.

Grattan Institute energy program director Tony Wood observed on Friday that, a decade ago, he was one of many who believed that by now carbon capture and storage facilities would be harnessed to old coal plants to make them carbon neutral. It never happened and nobody even raises the suggestion any more, because the cost of carbon capture kept growing while the cost of renewable energy alternatives kept falling.

Even the argument that Australian gas displaces foreign coal, thereby reducing global emissions, has been challenged by the CSIRO in a study commissioned (and then sat upon) by Australia’s biggest energy exporter, Woodside. In most cases it studied, CSIRO researchers found more gas would have a “negative impact” by delaying renewable energy uptake, prolonging coal-fired power or increasing emissions from gas.

To hear a key figure of this Labor government raise the talking points combated endlessly under the old Coalition government was a shock to many observers. One told the Herald and The Age that King’s press releases could have been written by her predecessor, Keith Pitt.

Greens leader Adam Bandt was unimpressed, as was teal Independent Zoe Daniel.

“The road to a 43 per cent cut, let alone the greater reductions that are really required, will be hard enough as it is,” she said. “We need substance as well as symbolism. I am seeking briefings from the government on the rationale behind this perplexing announcement.”

When he was called on the issue by a journalist at a press conference, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese asked the reporter if had driven to work.

It is a fair point. Australia can’t wish away its immediate need for fossil fuels, nor its reliance on trade. Furthermore, the release of new sites for exploration is an unremarkable annual task performed by the Department of Industry.

But having one minister address one audience in celebration of the long-term expansion of the fossil fuel sector as another engages a different one on the difficult task of quickly reducing emissions opens the government to accusations of greenwashing.

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