Australia’s greatest climate criminal, Woodside, has doubled its carbon emissions in the past two years, and increased by more than 10% the emissions intensity of the energy it produces, the company admits in its latest performance report.
The downstream “scope 3” emissions from its fossil fuels — emissions from the use of the fossil fuels it exports — were calculated by the company at 35.6 megatonnes of CO2-equivalent (CO2-e) back in 2021. Last year, scope 3 emissions exceeded 71 megatonnes, the company’s “climate report” revealed this week. And the overall carbon emissions intensity of the energy Woodside sold rose by 12% to 65 grams CO2-e per megajoule.
Against this doubling of emissions, Woodside is promising to abate just 5 megatonnes of scope 3 CO2-e by 2030 — a net reduction of just 7% of its total, or less than half of the increase between 2022 and 2023. The company has no actual target in relation to its scope 3 emissions — those 5 megatonnes may end up being abated against hundreds of megatonnes of scope 3 emissions if Woodside continues its spree of opening new gas fields with the encouragement of the federal government.
That’s not the end to Woodside’s climate nonsense, however. Its scope 3 abatement targets include discredited carbon capture technology, which it repeatedly spruiks in its climate report. The company claims it is “evaluating”, “investigating”, “aiming to accelerate” and “modelling” a range of carbon capture technologies, despite the repeated failure of carbon capture and storage in even the easiest and most straightforward of circumstances.
Despite this record of failure, Woodside claims “CCS is a mature technology which represents a proven solution to abate large-scale industrial emissions”. Remarkably, it groups carbon capture with wind technology:
We acknowledge that not everyone shares our views, for example about the role of natural gas in the energy transition, just as some people will debate the desirability of nuclear power, wind farms or carbon capture.
Woodside claims to “align its advocacy to support the goals of the Paris Agreement”, although nowhere does it explicitly claim its operations are consistent with limiting global temperature increases to well below 2°C or with efforts to limit temperature increase to 1.5°C. Doubling emissions — even in a fantasy world where carbon capture actually works — is consistent only with a dramatic increase in global temperatures.
Typical of climate criminals like Woodside and Santos, aided by spineless and donation-dependent Federal and State governments. Both literal and figurative gaslighting is what Woodside does best.
For heaven sake, I thought the lie of carbon capture and storage was dead and buried, but Woodside have found a way to zombify it.
Even Angus Taylor has traded in his clapped-out CCS lie for the snazzy new SMR model of the nuclear lie. Just as uneconomical, just as unproven, just as much of a rainbow appearing from the rear end of a unicorn! It promises a good 10-15 years of political milage for any pollie who cares to take a voters for a ride with it. Factory fitted extras are guaranteed on-going profits to fossil fuel donours and a stalling device for the introduction of cheaper renewables.
Only this morning I discovered Twiggy Forrest’s National Press Club address. It is full on and well worth the watch (iview). Highlights here: https://uat.crikey.com.au/2024/02/27/andrew-forrest-national-press-club-fossil-fuels-kerry-stokes/
Australia should legislate huge financial penalties for companies that increase their emissions. We won’t survive without it.
Telling that there is a “role of natural gas in the energy transition” as if the transition is to zero fossil gas is sly trickery. The only transition the gas industry is looking forward to is a rapid expansion of gas at the expense of coal. Eventually we will be helplessly dependent on the gas industry to keep the lights on whenever renewables fall short. If you think that nuclear energy is sinful, then it is nothing compared to the wickedness of the encroaching enemy – fossil gas.