With the Environmental Protection Authority starting public consultation today on its greenhouse gas assessments, the state government could do more to provide certainty for investors in WA’s potential gas projects.
With the Environmental Protection Authority starting public consultation today on its greenhouse gas assessments, the state government could do more to provide certainty for investors in WA’s potential gas projects.
Western Australia is edging towards its own Adani moment, the point at which it becomes unclear who’s running the state – elected politicians with voters’ interests (and their jobs) at heart, or civil servants who see a greater duty to the Paris Agreement on climate change.
Coal was the focal point of Queensland’s Adani crisis, which was largely the result of government officials and their external advisers constantly shifting the goal posts and doing whatever it took to delay and potentially kill a $2 billion coal mine proposed by India’s Adani Group.
Gas is WA’s equivalent, and while it’s a less polluting form of fossil fuel, there are similar pressures developing in the state government, which could lead to a number of multi-billion-dollar projects being delayed or cancelled without regulatory certainty.
The Queensland impasse was miraculously broken within days of the re-election of the Morrison government, when it became clear to Labor politicians they had misread the electorate (suffering a sharp fall in voter support in regional and rural Queensland).
A small bird, the black-throated finch, which had been declared endangered, suddenly became not endangered at the sweep of a political pen wielded by Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, who recognised that she (and her government) had become the endangered species.
Adani’s mine still has to get state approval for its water management plan, but given it already has federal approval that ought not to be a problem, as Queensland Labor hurriedly repairs its reputation.
Perhaps the worst aspect of the Adani scandal was the willingness of elected politicians to hand control of a key aspect of government decision-making to unelected officials, who were left to interpret state laws and mount obstacles to the mine.
WA’s gas industry is not yet at the same point reached in the Adani coal situation but it’s easy to see it getting there, despite statements of positive intent from Premier Mark McGowan.
Speaking at the annual conference of the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association (APPEA), Mr McGowan tried to argue that it was possible to have a 'go it alone' emissions target different to the rest of Australia and still attract investment in new gas projects.
It is an unachievable aim, as conflicted as that of his Queensland counterpart, who attempted to argue that she wanted Adani to succeed while allowing her staff to mount road blocks, until political reality dawned.
Mr McGowan’s problems start with the rather obvious point that climate policy is a national issue. If you’re going to have a WA climate policy why not have regional climate policies, or one just for an electorate, Rockingham perhaps?
The next issue for the premier is that he, like Ms Palaszczuk, has had multiple views on what’s a fair target for a reduction in emissions. Is it 26 per cent to 28 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030, the 50 per cent that was Labor policy at the federal election, or the zero net emissions by big projects as recommended by WA’s Environmental Protection Authority earlier this year?
Uncertainty over an emissions target is a problem confronting governments around the world, although some (including the biggest polluters on the planet) are ignoring the issue or fudging the process.
The issue likely to cause the WA government the greatest problem is the same that has caused so much trouble in Queensland – the gap between what politicians say and what their civil servants do.
In a remarkable example of political bluster, Mr McGowan said he would provide certainty for investors in gas projects and not allow the federal government to wreak havoc, as it had done in turning the energy market in the eastern states into a basket case.
In those comments he is ignoring the fact that it has been state governments in Victoria, NSW and Queensland that have done most of the damage to energy policy, and in WA it is his civil servants who are mounting gas-project roadblocks.
What happens next will be closely watched because it seems WA is on the verge of getting its own official government climate policy while the EPA works on its own emissions guidelines, which, according to some reports, will be the same zero emissions stand as recommended in the Paris Agreement.
Nothing that’s happened in the past few weeks will boost the confidence of oil company executives contemplating major investments in new gas projects at a time when there’s no shortage of alternative proposals in other countries where there is certainty and where the goal posts are firmly fixed in the ground.
