To:
Hon. Murray Watt, the Federal Minister for the Environment and Water;
Protecting our climate means rejecting new, extended, and expanded fossil fuel projects.
Soon, you will be deciding whether to approve or reject the extension to the North West Shelf gas processing facility at Woodside’s Burrup Hub. The North West Shelf is Western Australia’s oldest and dirtiest gas processing plant, where Woodside proposes to continue producing gas until 2070.
You will make this decision as we face dangerous and irreversible climate breakdown. From human-induced climate change to date, Western Australia already faces more deadly heatwaves; longer bushfire seasons; rainfall decline in the southwest; droughts impacting agricultural production; devastating marine heatwaves; and more intense floods, storms and cyclones. The iconic Ningaloo Reef and the Northern Jarrah Forest face near-term collapse.1,2
Science shows that the use of all fossil fuels, including gas, must decline imminently if warming is to be limited to 1.5°C. The International Energy Agency (IEA) in its Net Zero Emissions (NZE) roadmap calls for the end to new fossil fuel resource development as this would be inconsistent with meeting the Paris Agreement’s long-term temperature goal.
For gas, the International Energy Agency’s 2023 NZE roadmap shows gas use needs to be declining already at 2% per year towards 2030 with the decline accelerating to 8% per year globally between 2030 and 2040. Recent research shows that the present expansion of LNG capacity globally vastly exceeds levels consistent with limiting warming to 1.5°C and is more consistent with a global warming outcome of 3°C. This research shows that the LNG capacity greatly exceeds any needs for coal to gas switching as part of 1.5°C compatible energy transitions.3
Reducing our reliance on fossil fuels, combined with refusing new and extended fossil fuel projects, is the most effective method of minimising the impacts of the climate crisis.
The North West Shelf Project is already one of the biggest industrial emitters in Australia. It is seeking an extension to burn and produce fossil fuels all the way to 2070, to the tune of 4.4 billion tonnes of CO2-e, making it Australia’s biggest climate decision.4 The state of WA exports more LNG than any other country in the world, bar two. It is a substantial contributor to global emissions and has a great responsibility to stop fuelling global warming.
The extension of the North West Shelf Project risks the exploitation of gas fields in WA. The Browse gas basin lies directly under Scott Reef, one of our most ecologically significant marine environments and home to many threatened species. The North West Shelf Project extension also poses risks via sourcing feed-gas from fracking the Kimberley region, a vast area of natural beauty populated by unique and vulnerable flora and fauna.
Localised industrial emissions have also caused serious, irreversible damage to the more than 1 million petroglyphs located on Murujuga.5 Some of these petroglyphs are over 50,000 years old and represent the most dense and diverse collections of rock art in the world.
Protecting the environment, the economy, and ourselves means saying no to fossil fuels. For this reason, we call on Federal Minister Watt to reject the North West Shelf Project extension.
Signed:
Professor Adrian Barnett, Statistician, Queensland University of Technology
Professor Angie Bone, Board Member, Doctors for the Environment Australia
Dr Alex Wodak AM, Emeritus Consultant, St Vincent’s Hospital, Darlinghurst
Associate Professor Andrew King, Climate Scientist, University of Melbourne
Dr Bill Hare, CEO, Climate Analytics
Cindy Stevens, Farmer and AgZero Secretary
Dr Carmen Lawrence AO, Former WA Premier
Dr Carolyn Orr, Neurologist
Associate Professor Daniel Horsley, Monash University
Associate Professor Daniel Mathews, School of Mathematics, Monash University
Professor David Karoly, FAA , Professor Emeritus, University of Melbourne
Emeritus Professor Don Bradshaw, Senior Honorary Research Fellow, University of WA
Dr Djuke Veldhuis, Associate Professor, Monash University
Professor Don Driscoll, Professor of Terrestrial Ecology, Deakin University
Professor Euan Ritchie, Professor of Wildlife Ecology and Conservation
Professor Fiona Stanley, Professor University of Western Australia, 2003 Australian of the Year
Dr Frank Stilwell, Professor Emeritus, University of Sydney
Dr George Crisp, General Practioner, Senior Clinical Lecturer
Professor Graeme Pearman, Professorial Fellow, University of Melbourne
Professor Hans Lamber, Head of School of Plant Biology, University of Western Australia
Dr Hu Finn, Lecturer, Curtin University
Professor Jeremy Moss, Professor of Political Philosophy, University of Western Australia
Dr Jeremy Walker, Senior Lecturer, Climate Society & Environment Research Centre, University of Technology Sydney
Jo Vallentine, Former Australian Senator
Professor Hubertus Jersmann, Professor, University of Adelaide Medical School
Associate Professor Jesper Levinsen, Monash University
Emeritus Professor John Church AO FAA FTSE, Climate Change Research Centre, University of New South Wales
Professor John Quiggin, Professor of Economics, University of Queensland
Professor John Wiseman, Melbourne Climate Futures, The University of Melbourne
Professor Kadambot Siddique, Director, The UWA Institute of Agriculture, The University of Western Australia
Associate Professor Ken Winkel, University of Melbourne
Dr Keren Witcombe, General Practitioner and Medical Educator
Professor Kingsley Dixon AO, Professor of Botany and Restoration, The University of Western Australia
Dr Kristian C Heesch, Senior Lecturer, Queensland University of Technology
Dr Lincoln Turner, Senior Lecturer, Physics & Astronomy, Monash University
Professor Lynne Madden, Professor Population and Planetary Health UNDA
Emeritus Professor Malcolm McCulloch FAA, FRS, Oceans Institute, The University of Western Australia
Dr Marianne Frommer FAA, Honorary Professor, University of New South Wales, Sydney
Professor Mark L Wahlqvist AO, Past President of the International Union of Nutritional Sciences
Associate Professor Martin Brueckner, Pro Vice Chancellor Sustainability, Murdoch University
Professor Meera Parish, Professor in Theoretical Physics, Monash University
Dr Megan Evans, Senior Lecturer, UNSW Canberra
Associate Professor Michael Grace, Associate Professor, Monash University
Associate Professor Stuart Rosewarne, Adjunct Associate Professor, The University of Sydney
Dr Perran Cook, Professor of Environmental Chemistry, Monash University
Professor Peter Newman, Professor of Sustainability, Curtin University
Dr Peter Sainsbury, Adjunct Professor, University of Notre Dame Australia
Dr Philip Zylstra, Adjunct Associate Professor
Dr Raewyn Mutch, Doctor
Dr Richard Yin, Doctors for the Environment Australia
Dr Rosalie Schultz, Doctors for the Environment Australia, First Nations Interest group leader
Professor Rick Cavicchioli, University of New South Wales
Dr Sacha Jellinek, Research Fellow, University of Melbourne
Simon Wallwork, Chairperson, AgZero
Dr Tim Leahy, General Practitioner, Doctors for the Environment Australia
Professor Tommy Wiedmann, Professor of Sustainability Science, University of New. South Wales
Dr Yung En Chee, Senior Research Fellow, The University of Melbourne