Ben Harvey: Arrogant EPA has no place in climate wars

Premier Mark McGowan was last night under mounting pressure to quash a “job-killing” plan by WA’s environment watchdog to make big polluters pay for their carbon emissions.

The Environmental Protection Authority yesterday recommended that new projects in WA emitting more than 100,000 tonnes of greenhouse gases a year be forced to offset those emissions by planting trees or buying carbon credits.

The State Government has the final say on the approvals process and is free to ignore the recommendation, but Federal Resources Minister Matt Canavan said it needed to immediately rule out the requirement.

“This is a massive proposed act of economic self-harm to the WA economy and it would do nothing to help the environment,” Mr Canavan said. “It’s silly for WA to try to change the temperature of the globe from Perth.”

Chamber of Minerals and Energy WA chief executive Paul Everingham said the guidelines could damage the WA economy just as the future looked brighter.

“We call on the WA Government to reassure industry that they will not adopt these guidelines,” he said.

Woodside chief executive Peter Coleman said the EPA’s proposal would put investment and jobs at risk and significantly overstepped Australia’s Paris emissions reduction target of limiting global temperatures to under 2C above pre-industrial levels.

“Not only will this proposal put at risk new jobs, investment and domestic gas supplies, it positions Western Australia at a competitive disadvantage in the global LNG marketplace,” he said. Woodside’s $15.6 billion Scarborough LNG project will be affected by the new guidelines because its new onshore processing capacity requires a review by the EPA.

Scarborough’s offshore facilities would not be impacted because they were in Commonwealth waters.

The West Australian understands the company’s $29 billion Browse LNG project would not be affected because its gas will be processed at the existing North West Shelf plant.

Mr McGowan did not say he would unilaterally ignore the recommendation but said his Government’s top priority was creating jobs.

“The EPA makes recommendations, governments make decisions,” he said.

“I am absolutely determined to support job-creating LNG projects like Browse and Scarborough.

“The EPA’s guidelines reflect the Federal Government’s complete failure to provide a consistent national approach to reducing Australia’s emissions.”

EPA chairman Tom Hatton, said the authority, which could not consider social and economic impacts when making policies, had raised the bar on its emissions advice.

“How the State Government receives that advice is beyond my reach, but that is the position the EPA board is taking,” he said.

Dr Hatton said the EPA would “absolutely” consider the argument that an LNG project could reduce emissions in another country where its product was burnt instead of coal.

Dr Hatton said if a Federal government changed its approach to climate change and the EPA felt Australia would meet its international obligations, the guidelines would be reviewed and requirements of companies could be reduced.

Conservation Council director Piers Verstegen said the new guidelines were a big step in the right direction. “While this policy does not explicitly rule out new fossil fuel developments, it is a big step forward,” he said.

WA’s carbon emissions have increased by 27 per cent between 2000 and 2016, the EPA says.