WA emissions have risen but premier insists it's necessary in global fight against climate change

Australia Broadcast Center

3 hours ago

Western Australia's gas is a golden ticket, a sought-after transition fuel helping to displace coal in Asia and lower global emissions.
At least that's the story WA Premier Roger Cook has been selling.
Amid public backlash to the federal government's decision to approve a 40-year extension to Woodside's North West Shelf Karratha gas project, something the WA Government green lit in December, the premier is sticking to his talking points.
The project's extension is good for the economy, it's good for jobs, it's good for regional WA — and it's good for the energy transition, he says.
His good friend, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, was on the same page last week, praising the North West Shelf extension before Tuesday's federal cabinet meeting in Perth.
"The people I've met in Karratha support jobs and support economic activity… I went to Karratha during the election campaign," Mr Albanese said.
"I understand that this great state isn't just about Perth, it's about jobs."
Environment advocates disagree.
They're concerned about what the project's emissions will mean for the world, and for WA's climate targets – a concern dismissed by supporters.
"I obviously speak to the gas companies and I speak to their customers and their customers have said very clearly to me, for instance Japan… we want to get from 39 per cent profile for coal fire power in our grid down to 19 per cent," Mr Cook said last Tuesday.
"The only way we can do that is by utilising gas."
The WA Greens say the North West Shelf puts the state on the path to becoming Australia's "climate change capital," especially given new data shows WA's greenhouse gas emissions in 2023 were going in the wrong direction.
Figures from the Federal Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water found WA's emissions are now almost 17 per cent above 2005 levels and rising, ahead of other mining states like Queensland.
It means the state is bucking the national trend, with Australia's overall emissions falling 27 per cent over the same period.
"The Cook Labor government knows these numbers and they just don't care," new Greens MLC Sophie McNeill said at a rally last Wednesday.
But WA is planning to bring its emissions down, right?
Maybe – but it might not be any time soon.
"What's more important is that we bring down global emissions," Mr Cook said last Thursday.
Part of that role, the Premier says, is to provide gas to countries moving away from coal but who aren't replacing it directly with renewables.
It's part of the reason why he has pulled back on previous plans to legislate state climate targets, saying it could 'shackle' the state from helping the world.
"If you are introducing green iron into Western Australia, if you're realising our full potential with regard to the global manufacturing battery supply chain, if we're securing renewable energy and exporting it in the forms of ammonia, hydrogen and other forms of stored energy, potentially Western Australia's emissions will increase," Mr Cook said this week.
There are plenty who doubt that position.
A report last year by the US Department of Energy — looking at the impacts of increasing America's gas exports — found it could allow for rising demand to be met while reducing greenhouse gas emissions from coal and oil.
But it also found that upping supply could create an 'increased consumption of global services', which would in turn increase emissions.
A 2019 CSIRO report, commissioned by Woodside and frequently cited by climate advocates, found gas would only reduce greenhouse gas emissions in Asia if a high price on carbon was imposed.
'Gas can assist [greenhouse gas emission] mitigation during the period when carbon prices or equivalent signals are strong enough to force high renewable electricity generation shares,' it found.
'Until the carbon price reaches that level their impact on emissions reduction is either negative or neutral.'
Energy Finance Analyst at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, Kevin Morrison, also doubts the WA government's views.
He said while gas would play a role in the energy transition, 'there's no sign of it replacing coal', and that it is still emissions-intensive when being exported, as much of WA's gas is.
'It has got to be frozen, then it's a ship, it burns a lot of fuel as it's going over thousands of kilometres, and then it's reheated at the other end,' he said.
'All that together really adds up to a fair bit of emissions.'
Mr Morrison was particularly doubtful of Cook's claims Japan needed WA's gas to decarbonise, pointing to IEEFA research that Japan onsold much of the gas it purchased from Australia.
Tensions over the role WA has to play in decarbonising the world are not going away anytime soon.
Demonstrations have continued for the second week as climate activists protest the North West Shelf extension and its impact on rising emissions.
Conservation Council WA community organiser Victoria Pavy helped organise the snap national day of action event in Perth last Wednesday.
"We know that from 2026 onwards there's a projected global gas glut, so it's going to be harder and harder for Australia to actually sell our gas and there's a lot more supply than demand," she said.
Australian Youth Climate Coalition WA organiser Jordan Rowand agrees.
"[In] every other state, their emissions have gone down since 2005, so the work that we have to do in Western Australia is a lot… we have some big fights ahead of us," they said.
History will judge whether the WA government is chasing a real golden ticket or something closer to fool's gold.