“Australians should be proud of these projects,” he said. “They will contribute to global efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve air quality for communities in our customer countries, while stimulating economic growth and job creation here in Australia. “Our world needs extra energy, reliable energy and cleaner energy. The offshore gas fields we are proposing to develop in Western Australia will play a significant role in supporting countries such as those in the Asia Pacific to switch to cleaner energy sources and will be a necessary complement to renewables to ensure energy reliability.” The report’s greenhouse gas emissions estimates for Browse and Scarborough are similar to the Conservation Council’s, but it argues because the target markets – Japan, China, India and South East Asia – are coal-intensive economies, that cleaner-burning gas will displace the coal and therefore reduce overall global emissions. It assumes that while gas competes with coal, it won’t compete with renewables; renewables will be so cheap to produce, and gain such traction worldwide, they will assert a dominant place and make fossil fuels including coal and gas fight it out in the corner. It’s a strange assertion for a report commissioned to defend the place of gas and it’s also strange because it goes on to say that renewables are unlikely to assert dominance in the abovementioned Asian markets because the countries lack the physical space for wind and solar farms on large enough scales.

It pushes on to flesh out the case that the gas will displace coal, modelling three possible future emissions trajectories for each of the Asian markets based on three scenarios for how the world will address global warming between 2025-2040. The scenarios are taken from the International Energy Agency’s World Energy Outlook, a globally authoritative publication that informs significant investment and political decisions worldwide. Woodside's local advertising. Credit:Emma Young The first is a business-as-usual scenario, based on the world’s current policies, assuming the continued fossil fuel free-for-all and significant global warming. The second ‘new policies’ scenario shows what would happen under countries’ Paris agreements made so far. These are still not yet enough to keep global warming below 2C; it’s estimated at closer to 2.7C of warming.

The report models Browse and Scarborough’s combined emissions as an improvement on both of these scenarios by displacing coal in the four Asian markets. The third scenario is the sustainable development scenario, an ideal situation in which the world drastically curbs emissions, rapidly transitions to renewables and keeps global warming below 2C (specifically, 1.8C). The Woodside report argues the sustainable scenario actually requires gas as a transition fuel for those coal-reliant economies to achieve this. “The success of achieving a low-carbon outcome as described by the sustainable development scenario is in fact predicated on the increased use of gas in these markets,” it says. It says under this scenario, demand peaks in the 2030s, and Asian LNG markets will continue to grow in the long term.

But even the sustainable scenario used in the report conflicts with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the United Nations body for assessing the science related to climate change. The IPCC has said energy from gas must reduce by 25 per cent by 2030, and 74 per cent by 2050. Woodside chairman Richard Goyder at the ASFA super conference in Melbourne this month. Credit:Wayne Taylor Former IPCC author Bill Hare, one of the world’s foremost climate change experts and now the founder of Climate Analytics and Murdoch University Adjunct Professor, said the Woodside report was incorrect in its interpretation of the scenario, which actually has demand peaking before 2030. Further, he said the scenario was itself incorrect in its assumptions about gas, and inconsistent with the ultimate goal of the Paris Agreement to limit warming to 1.5C.

He said it substantially exaggerated the amount of natural gas used in the power sector and contradicted model assessments of limiting warming to 1.5C. "The IEA has systematically underestimated the growth of renewable energy over many years ... there are many reasons for this, but with the passage of time I, and many other experts, don’t think they are really acceptable anymore," he said. "IEA modelling will continually overestimate the amount of natural gas that can be used in the power sector as it does not 'believe' there will be enough renewable energy entering the system to meet projected demand. In the expert community these are well-known issues, and I believe they are well understood by industry experts as well. "It creates a false expectation about the future growth of this industry and obscures the need for a transition that must be prepared for by government and others well ahead of time. "Industry is fully aware of this situation as experts from Shell, BP, BHP, Woodside and other companies have engaged me on it at different times over the last few years.

"This situation has led to significant disquiet in the scientific and expert community." The other thing the Woodside report makes clear is that Browse will be Australia’s highest-emitting gas field at the source, with a higher percentage of carbon in the reservoir than even Chevron’s Gorgon, which is presently WA's highest-emission reservoir. The report shows Browse’s carbon dioxide percentage is double that of the national average for gas. The new connections forging the Burrup Hub are shown in red. Credit:Woodside If gas is to provide a “clean” alternative for coal, the Scarborough gas field is certainly “cleaner” than Browse.

This is significant for potential Browse partners Shell and BP, which have both announced carbon reduction commitments that Browse involvement could make it difficult or impossible to meet. Loading An investment decision is imminent. Woodside announced this week it would offset reservoir emissions for current operations by 0.6 million tonnes per year from 2021, doubling from 2025. But Browse and Scarborough's life-cycle emissions will be close to 100 million tonnes per year and are not part of the commitment.