2025-02-14
The Greens (WA) have today announced their 2025 Climate platform which presents a clear plan for Western Australia to protect our climate, get off gas and turn our state into a renewable energy powerhouse.
The Greens plan for WA includes:
- A Clean Energy Transition Levy on gas revenue
- A Gas Transition Plan for WA
- A 2030 Emissions Reduction Target & Renewable Energy Target
Under WA Labor, Western Australia has become the nation’s worst climate laggard - the only state in Australia without a 2030 emissions reduction target or a 2030 Renewable Energy target, with rising emissions and one of the lowest renewable energy investment rates in Australia.
Western Australia’s fossil fuel exports have significant global impact and consequences. WA is currently the world’s third largest exporter of Liquified Natural Gas (LNG), supplying 12% of the world’s total LNG exports.
WA Labor's claims that our gas has less emissions than coal and is helping Asia to decarbonise are dangerous lies - LNG is a dangerous fossil fuel that is causing significant harm to our climate.
The latest climate science makes it clear that exported gas emits as many, if not more, greenhouse gas emissions than coal. Research from the CSIRO has shown that Australian gas is actually displacing renewables in Asia, not coal - keeping our neighbours hooked on fossil fuels for decades to come.
Contrary to misinformation from the gas industry, fossil fuels are only a small part of WA’s economy. While 220,000 Western Australians work in health care, and 143,000 work in mining, just 11,000 work in oil and gas extraction - making up just 0.7% of the state’s workforce.
Unlike the mining industry, most of the gas industry in Western Australia pays no royalties at all - in fact WA drivers pay more in vehicle registration than the gas industry pays in royalties.
Western Australia is already experiencing devastating climate consequences. Identified as a global drying hotspot by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), since 1970 winter rainfall has declined up to 20% in our southwest, river flows have plummeted and heatwaves spanning water and land have intensified.
Last year was Perth’s hottest, driest summer ever recorded, leading to forest collapse in large swathes of our southwest and deeply challenging conditions for our farmers.
These warming temperatures are also leading to deeply harmful economic consequences for our state. The January 2023 Kimberley flooding cost WA taxpayers over $869 million dollars.
A severe marine heatwave experience in January 2025 threatens valuable industries such as the rock lobster fishery and marine tourism on the Coral Coast.
Only the Greens have a plan to transition workers out of the harmful and dying gas industry and develop good long term green jobs that will last decades into the future.
A Clean Energy Transition Levy on Gas Revenue
WA’s gas revenue arrangements are dated and no longer fit for purpose, with the current tax and royalty arrangements made decades before WA developed its offshore gas industry.[1]
It is time Western Australian residents received benefits from the gas and condensate transported from Commonwealth waters offshore to onshore processing plants in WA, that are then sold for billions of dollars.
Fossil fuel companies including Woodside, Chevron, Shell, Exxon, BP made an estimated $41 billion in 2023-24 exporting liquified natural gas out of Western Australia.
However, the current royalty arrangements saw WA only receive $680 million[1] from gas royalties in the 2023-24 budget.
The Greens will push for the WA State Government to work with the Federal Government to establish a new 10% Clean Energy Transition Levy on existing WA gas projects processed onshore.
If applied last financial year, this levy could have earned Western Australia $4.1 billion dollars - still less than half the $9.8 billion dollars that the iron-ore industry contributed to WA state revenue.
The funds raised from the Greens proposed levy will be earmarked solely to pay for WA’s transition into a renewable energy superpower and for paying from the increasing climate damage our state is suffering.
It will directly fund:
- Delivery of critical and life-saving fire and emergency services across the state that are facing increasing demand from climate related disasters.
- The Greens ‘Renewables for All’ policy which would see Zero Interest Loan Scheme for home renewable energy, EV’s and batteries, a Home Energy Rebate Program aimed at lower income households, a Renewables for Renters initiative and a Solar for Apartments scheme.
- The building of large scale, publicly owned batteries, wind and solar.
- The development of a WA Renewable Jobs Plan
- The development of a Gas Transition Plan for WA
- The establishment of Green Iron Precincts in partnership with the Federal Government, ensuring strategic and sufficient investment in large-scale renewables necessary for the delivery of green iron.
- The building of the required transmission network to deliver large-scale renewable energy projects in the south-west.
- The development of a comprehensive single Common-User Grid Infrastructure Plan in the expanded Pilbara region to deliver large-scale renewable energy, green iron and green minerals projects in the north-west.
- The establishment of an industry-led reuse, recovery and recycling scheme for solar panels, battery storage systems, inverters and related products, creating new jobs and industries from the recovery of these resources.
- The establishment of a decommissioning pathway for offshore and onshore oil and
gas facilities and ensure the delivery of a multi-user decommissioning facility that maximises recycling of steel and associated construction materials.
A Gas Transition Plan for WA
The Greens will push for the WA government to commission a comprehensive gas transition study and industry phase-out plan for WA.
No gas industry worker should suffer the anxiety and financial insecurity that comes from losing their job suddenly. Over a carefully planned transition, we can assure gas industry workers that they will continue in gainful, well-paid employment until retirement.
This study will determine the training and support needed to ensure WA gas industry workers are not left behind in the transition to net zero, providing a clear roadmap for how Western Australia can use the expertise and skills within the gas industry to develop new, clean energy export industries.
This in-depth transition plan will be funded by the Clean Energy Transition Levy and will be carried out in consultation with unions and industry.
2030 Emissions Reduction Target & Renewable Energy Target
Western Australia remains the only state without a 2030 Emissions Reduction target or a 2030 Renewable Energy Target in the whole country.
While other states, on average, have reduced their emissions by 55% since 2005, whilst Western Australia’s emissions have increased by 8.3% in that time.
The Greens will introduce a climate change Act for Western Australia that legislates 1.5 degree-aligned targets for emissions reduction and renewable energy for 2030 through to 2050.
Western Australia needs to play ’s part in Australia meeting at 1.5° aligned goal for 2030 and 2035
Quotes attributable to Greens WA Fossil Fuel Spokesperson Sophie McNeill:
“Roger Cook and Reece Whitby have spent their time in power securing the future of Woodside and Chevron shareholders - not a safe future for our kids.
“The Cook government’s obstruction of climate action is so obvious state Labor MPs are choosing to leave politics to go work in the climate space because they’ll have more chance of helping reduce emissions from outside this government than within it.
“Meanwhile, our state is being increasingly left out of the green boom because of WA Labor’s continued obsession with fossil fuel expansion and new gas.
“If Premier Cook doesn't change his ways soon, his lasting legacy will be how he chose to support Woodside's interests over the long-term benefit of WA’s workers and our economy.
“Only through the Greens securing the balance of power will see WA finally come out of the dark ages on climate.”
Quotes attributable to Greens WA Climate Change Spokesperson Dr Brad Pettitt MLC:
“Gas is part of the problem, not part of the solution.
“Western Australia is the only state where emissions are still rising and yet the Cook Labor has failed to deliver on its promise to introduce emissions reduction and renewable energy targets that are in line with the science because they are captured by the gas industry.
“This same industry is ripping off Western Australians, making billions of dollars in revenue and paying hardly anything back for the privilege. This arrangement is frankly criminal, and it has to change.
“Only the Greens have a plan to urgently get off gas, invest in renewable energy and legislate realistic, but ambitious, emissions reduction targets that are in line with climate science to bring Western Australia back on track with the rest of Australia, and the world.
“The Greens understand that a transition must include a plan to protect workers and communities that are impacted by the transition away from fossil fuels and ensure their long-term economic security as a priority.
“In the face of hotter and drier summers, more dangerous and frequent bushfires and ecological collapse on a scale never seen in this state before the WA community rightly expect better!
“Without a plan as the closure of coal-fired power stations in Collie looms, Western Australia is sleepwalking into long-term reliance on new gas.”
Media enquiries: Tim Oliver
Email: tim.oliver@wa.greens.org.au
Phone: 0431 9696 25
[1] See Seas and Submerged Lands Case in 1975 and the subsequent 'Offshore Constitutional Settlement' (OCS).
https://www.ourstatebudget.wa.gov.au/2023-24/budget-papers/bp3/2023-24-… - 660 million