Offshore Gas Projects Approved Despite Climate Commitments

Gas Approvals Keep Coming - So What's Going On?

Australia has legally committed to reaching net zero emissions by 2050 and cutting emissions by 43% below 2005 levels by 2030. Those are serious targets with serious implications - or they should be. Yet over the past two years, the federal government has approved a string of major offshore gas projects that climate scientists say are fundamentally incompatible with those goals.

The most significant of these is Woodside Energy's Scarborough gas project off the coast of Western Australia, paired with the expansion of the Pluto LNG processing facility. Woodside's own projections estimate Scarborough will produce approximately 876 million tonnes of CO2-equivalent emissions over its lifetime - more than twice Australia's total annual emissions. The project was greenlit by the Albanese Labor government despite sustained opposition from environmental groups, First Nations communities, and climate scientists.

It's not an isolated case. The Browse Basin development - potentially one of the largest untapped gas reserves in the world - continues to inch toward approval. Meanwhile, Santos has been pushing ahead with the Barossa gas project in the Timor Sea, which was temporarily halted after a Federal Court ruled the company had failed to adequately consult with the Tiwi Islands Traditional Owners. Santos subsequently undertook further consultation and has continued pursuing approval.

Why Is This Happening?

The short answer: money and political pressure.

The Australian gas industry is extraordinarily profitable, and the companies involved are among the most powerful corporate lobbying forces in the country. Woodside, Santos, and Chevron collectively spent tens of millions of dollars on lobbying and political donations over the past decade. The gas industry also benefits from $5.5 billion in annual fossil fuel subsidies according to the Australia Institute - a figure that persists under governments of both political stripes.

There's also a convenient political argument that governments deploy to justify approvals: that Australian LNG exports help Asian countries transition away from coal. It sounds reasonable on the surface. The problem is that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the International Energy Agency (IEA) have both concluded clearly that no new fossil fuel development can be approved if the world is to limit warming to 1.5°C. The IEA's landmark 2021 Net Zero by 2050 report was explicit: "No new oil and natural gas fields are needed beyond those already approved as of 2021."

In other words, the transition-fuel argument is no longer supported by the science.

Who Bears the Cost?

The people who bear the costs of these decisions are not the people making them:

• First Nations communities like the Tiwi Islanders, whose sea country, cultural sites, and fishing grounds are directly threatened by offshore drilling and pipeline infrastructure
• Coastal and agricultural communities facing increased flood, fire, and drought risk as climate change intensifies
• Young Australians, who will live through the consequences of emissions locked in by projects with 30-40 year operational lifespans
• Pacific Island nations, many of which face existential threats from sea level rise and have explicitly called on Australia to stop approving new fossil fuel projects
• Future taxpayers, who face enormous infrastructure and disaster response costs as climate impacts escalate

Meanwhile, the companies extracting Australian gas pay relatively little for the privilege. The Petroleum Resource Rent Tax (PRRT), designed to capture a share of profits for Australians, has been widely criticised as ineffective. In some recent years, major LNG producers paid zero PRRT despite recording billions in revenue, due to generous deductibility provisions that successive governments have been slow to reform.

Why Does This Policy Persist?

Because the people who benefit from it are concentrated, wealthy, and politically connected - and the people who bear the costs are diffuse, often marginalised, or not yet born.

This is a textbook example of what political scientists call regulatory capture: when an industry becomes so embedded in the regulatory and political process that the agencies meant to oversee it begin to serve its interests instead. The approvals process for offshore gas projects runs through NOPSEMA (the National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority) - a body that has faced sustained criticism for prioritising industry facilitation over genuine environmental scrutiny.

Both major parties bear responsibility here. The Coalition spent a decade actively championing gas as a "transition fuel" and obstructing serious climate policy. Labor came to government in 2022 promising meaningful climate action, but has approved major new gas projects, retained most fossil fuel subsidies, and declined to implement a climate trigger in environmental law that would allow projects to be rejected on emissions grounds alone.

What Would Voters Actually Choose?

Polling consistently shows that a strong majority of Australians - around 70% in recent surveys - support stronger action on climate change. Polling by the Australia Institute and others shows majority support for ending new fossil fuel approvals. Yet these preferences are systematically overridden because the political system responds to donations, lobbying, and marginal seat calculus rather than the broad public will.

This is exactly the problem that direct democracy is designed to solve. When citizens vote directly on policy - rather than outsourcing every decision to representatives who can be lobbied, pressured, and incentivised - the outcomes look very different. Norwegian-style citizens' assemblies on climate have repeatedly produced more ambitious recommendations than their parliaments. When ordinary people understand the full picture, they tend to prioritise their children's future over a gas company's quarterly earnings.

The question of whether to approve a project that will generate nearly a billion tonnes of emissions shouldn't be made behind closed doors by a minister advised by industry. It should be made by the people who will live with the consequences.

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