(AU Canberra Times) Resources Industry Must Clean Up Its Act Or Get Out Of The Way

Canberra Times - Michael Allen

Fossil-fuel industries and their peak bodies are adept at painting themselves as partners on the way to climate solutions. Give me a break. Picture: Shutterstock

Author Michael Allen is a former chief financial officer for listed resource companies and has worked in senior executive positions for companies including AngloGold, Anglo American and Resolute Mining. He is treasurer of renewable-energy think tank Sustainable Energy Now.

As someone who has worked in the resources industry for three decades, much of it as a chief financial officer for major mining companies, it has been frustrating over the past week to see how the oil and gas industry has tried to position itself as part of the solution to lowering emissions and tackling climate change - rather than acknowledging it is a large part of the problem.

Let us be clear at the start: gas is a fossil fuel that's driving climate change.

Methane concentrations in the atmosphere are not only continuing to grow but accelerating. Experts like the Climate Council's Professor Will Steffen, the former executive director of the ANU's Climate Change Institute, largely attribute this increase to the gas industry's expansion.

This is what exacerbating climate change looks like - not solving it. The industry's mouthpiece, the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association, simply has no valid claim to being part of the solution when it and its members are aggressively pushing to expand gas extraction.

Parts of our economy today still rely on oil and gas, but the only course of action compatible with net-zero emissions and a safe climate is to spare no effort in the transition to cleaner options like renewable energy or alternative materials - not prolonging existing, dangerous incumbents like gas.

It is also a cop out for the gas industry to mention the royalties companies pay, without also mentioning the billions of dollars of public subsidies the industry receives and the minimal tax many of those same companies pay. Let's see them published together.

Instead, to protect their profits, fossil-fuel companies have perpetuated decades of misinformation about climate change, spent billions on political donations to stall climate action and secured public funding for a "gas-led recovery".

When it comes to climate change, fossil fuels - like coal, oil and gas - are the cause, because they are the biggest driver of greenhouse gas emissions.

Links

• (AU ABC) Legal Challenge Launched Against Federal Government's $21 Million Beetaloo Basin Grant
• (AU The Guardian) Western Australia Gas Project ‘Would Create More Emissions Than Adani And Damage Indigenous Rock Art’
• (Big Think) Hey, Methane Leakers: Now We Know Where You Live
• (AU The Conversation) Four seismic climate wins show Big Oil, Gas and Coal are running out of places to hide
• (AU The Guardian) Why Is Australia Building A $600m Gas Power Plant As World Experts Warn Against Fossil Fuels?
• (AU The Guardian) Australia Urged To Drop Coal And Gas Plans After Global Energy Agency’s Warning
• (USA New Yorker) It’s Time To Kick Gas
• (AU The Guardian) The 2021 Federal Budget Was Light On Climate And Environment Measures. But Here’s What You Should Know