Woodside’s controversial Browse Gas Project is now open to public comment after Environment Minister Murray Watt accepted a reconsideration request from the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) as valid.
The reconsideration request will now be published on the department’s website for 20 business days for public comment, before a decision is made on whether to uphold the original referral decision or replace it with a new one.
“New evidence ACF put before the Minister shows the climate pollution from Woodside’s Browse climate bomb would have unacceptable impacts on places of national significance like the Great Barrier Reef,” ACF CEO Adam Bandt said.
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“Those scientific-based impacts simply can’t be ignored and should form part of Minister Watt’s decision on the Browse Gas Project.
“The decision to accept the reconsideration request as valid is critical, enabling public comment on Woodside’s controversial Browse Gas Project for the first time in eight years at a federal level.
“ACF will encourage its 600,000-strong supporter base to now have its say on the looming climate bomb, with submissions open for 20 days,” Bandt said.
ACF commissioned research from IPCC Lead Author, Professor Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick of the ANU, who found the emissions from the Browse Gas Project would result in the death of an additional 29.35 million individual coral colonies in every future mass bleaching event on the Great Barrier Reef.
Minister Watt has also made an administrative determination that the Browse Carbon Capture and Storage Project in Western Australia will be assessed wholly under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999.
Previously, the environmental impacts of different components of offshore carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects were required to be assessed under separate regulatory regimes.
The Browse Gas Project is a more than $30 billion offshore development proposed by Woodside approximately 425km north of Broome in Western Australia. It involves drilling in the Torosa, Brecknock, and Calliance fields and piping gas some 900km to the North West Shelf (NWS) Project plant in Karratha.
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Woodside says independent modelling shows the project represents a significant opportunity to strengthen Australia’s energy security, support the energy transition, and deliver long-term economic benefits for Western Australia and the nation.
Environmental and conservation groups have strongly opposed the massive fossil fuel project, calling it a highly destructive project that will release 1.6 billion tonnes of climate pollution into the atmosphere.
