The "Good Guys" - Labor - Won In Australia. They Want Another 40 Years Of NG Output, Another 6 Billion Tons CO2
Australia’s climate-heating emissions increased fractionally last year as pollution from fossil fuel power plants rose for the first time in a decade, and domestic air travel and use of diesel-powered cars and trucks hit record highs. The jump in emissions was small – just 0.05% – due to falls in pollution from other sectors. But the direction was at odds with the Albanese government’s pledge to cut pollution to reach targets for 2030 and 2050.
The data was released on Friday, two days after the environment minister, Murray Watt, announced he planned to approve a 40-year life extension for one of Australia’s biggest fossil fuel developments – Woodside Energy’s North West Shelf liquified natural gas (LNG) processing facility in the Pilbara.
Based on the Burrup peninsula, in Murujuga country, the North West Shelf is Australia’s third biggest industrial polluter, responsible for about 1.4% of the country’s annual climate pollution. The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, has rejected concerns about the facility’s emissions continuing for decades after 2050, saying the national goal was “net zero, not zero”, implying ongoing fossil fuel use could be justified by using a contentious carbon offset scheme. His comments echoed language used in 2021 by the Coalition’s then emissions reduction minister, Angus Taylor, when defending climate policies under Scott Morrison.
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Critics have challenged the economic and climate basis for a decades-long extension of the processing facility’s life. Alex Hillman, from the Australasian Centre for Corporate Responsibility and a former Woodside Energy climate change adviser, said analysts from the International Energy Agency had projected the world was heading for an “LNG glut” later this decade. “There is no commercial justification to add further LNG supply, and there is certainly no climate justification,” he said. “Whilst there is major flooding in New South Wales and a major drought in South Australia, these are emissions that are going to cause Australians and investment portfolios further harm as the physical impacts of climate change increase.”
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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/may/31/australias-emissions-up-slightly-in-2024-as-labor-faces-heat-over-climate-wrecking-gas-project