Climate change must be a central consideration in the management of Australia's natural resources. The overwhelming scientific evidence of human-induced global warming demands that all jurisdictions substantially reduce greenhouse gas emissions, transitioning away from fossil fuels to achieve a 100% renewable energy economy.
Government must ensure that the transition away from fossil fuel extraction is appropriately managed and just. This includes implementing strategies, policies and targets to ensure the transition is rapid enough to achieve emissions targets that secure a safe climate and meet or exceed international climate agreements, and include support for communities and workers that have traditionally derived income from fossil fuel related industries.
Aims
The Greens (WA) want:
- a rapid and just reduction to the rate of all West Australian fossil fuel extraction from current operations, to achieve the end of extraction by 2030
- a just transition for all workers involved in fossil fuel extraction
- an end to hydraulic fracking1 anywhere in Western Australia
- an immediate removal of all subsidies to the fossil fuel extraction industry, whether direct or indirect
- coal mining companies to be legally compelled to fully fund and implement rehabilitation of their mine sites (see also the Greens (WA) Resource Mining policy)
- companies involved in fossil fuel extraction to be legally bound to fully implement rehabilitation of the environmental disturbance resulting from their activities
Measures
The Greens (WA) will initiate and support legislation and actions that:
- close existing coal mines as soon as possible
- prohibit the development of new coal mines or the expansion of existing mines
- wind down and then ban the extraction of natural gas and oil for domestic and export purposes
- replace domestic and export fuel energy with renewable energy (see also the Greens (WA) Energy policy)
- ensure that workers in the fossil fuel production sector have access to retraining and high quality, unionised jobs in the emerging sustainable economy (see also the Greens (WA) Workplace Relations policy)
- ban any natural gas production systems that involve hydraulic fracturing1
- oppose the use of fossil fuels as a source of hydrogen and energy for the manufacture of ammonia and fertilisers in favour of hydrogen produced by the electrolysis of water using renewable energy
- require full, open and transparent annual disclosure of greenhouse gas emissions from all stages of fossil fuel extraction, processing and export, including fugitive emissions, as part of the National Greenhouse Gas Inventory reporting requirement (under the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Act 2007) (see also the Greens (WA) Climate Change policy
- require annual disclosure of the quantity of potential National Greenhouse Gas emissions embodied in in exported fossil fuels
- require full disclosure in any areas of uncertainty from data reporting for all components of the production train in all oil and gas facilities, as part of the National Greenhouse Gas Inventory reporting requirement
- impose a resource rent tax or additional royalty to reflect the climate change costs, to the community and the environment, of carbon emissions from fossil fuels
- ensure fossil fuel producers compliance with all state and Federal licence conditions relating to mitigations of carbon pollution
- require existing fossil fuel producers to offset emissions where agreed mitigation measures have failed
(See also the Australian Greens Climate Change & Energy policy)
Glossary
1. Hydraulic fracturing or fracking is a technique in which rock is fractured by a pressurized liquid. The process involves the high pressure injection of the 'fracking fluid' into the well-bore to create cracks in the deep rock formations through which natural gas and petroleum will flow more freely.
Fossil Fuel Extraction policy ratified by The Greens (WA) in 2020
Photo of gas extraction courtesy Robin Chapple