A Deloitte report leaked to the media, commissioned by the government of Western Australia, confirms WA’s gas exports are fueling the climate crisis by delaying Asia’s clean energy transition, says Greenpeace.
The report's findings reinforce other independent analysis on the global energy transition, and expose the massive climate and economic risk of the state’s continued expansion of new fossil fuel projects.
Greenpeace gas campaigners in Australia and Southeast Asia say the report firmly challenges the gas industry’s claims that WA’s gas exports are helping countries in Southeast Asia to decarbonize, when it is actually delaying the renewable energy transition and fueling climate disasters.
Joe Rafalowicz, Head of Climate and Energy at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, said: “This report confirms what experts have been warning for years: WA’s gas exports are fueling the climate crisis and delaying the roll-out of clean energy in Asia. The CSIRO concluded the same thing in a 2019 report Woodside tried to hide.”
“How many more reports will be buried before the Government of Western Australia accepts the truth: WA gas is fueling the climate crisis, and any claims made by the gas industry that suggest otherwise are nothing but a smokescreen to wring every dollar out of their stranded fossil fuel assets.
“Our trading partners need clean, reliable energy, not expensive, polluting gas - and Western Australia can be the one to provide it, as Greenpeace’s recent modelling clearly shows. If we act now, renewable energy can be our next big success story. We encourage the WA Government to accept the overwhelming evidence and firmly lean into the state’s green economic future."
Anchalee Pipattanawattanakul, Campaign Leader at Greenpeace Southeast Asia, said: "Australia’s growing gas exports are among the factors holding back Thailand and the region from transition toward renewable energy, keeping us dependent on fossil fuels and worsen the devastating climate impacts that we are already experiencing.
Expensive gas imports from Australia, often resold by other countries, are a direct driver of our surging electricity prices. In 2022, growing gas imports contributed to a doubling of domestic gas prices in Thailand, hitting ordinary people with record-high power bills.
Instead of helping us, this flood of expensive gas flowing in from Western Australia is delaying our transition to cheap, clean energy and fueling more severe climate disasters like floods, droughts and extreme heat. We need partners for a renewable future, not polluters who lock us into expensive, fossil-fuel dependency, while big gas corporations keep the profits.”