2022 offshore petroleum exploration acreage release: nominated areas for comment

Australian Parents for Climate Action

Submission to the Department of Industry, Science, Energy
and Resources: 2022 Offshore Petroleum Exploration
Acreage Release
14 December 2021

Australian Parents for Climate Action
c/o Environmental Leadership Australia
Level 2, 69 Reservoir Street
Surry Hills NSW 2010

Email: info@ap4ca.org

Australian Parents for Climate Action represents more than 16,000 parents, grandparents and carers from across
Australia. We are Australia’s leading organisation for parents advocating for a safe climate.
Our supporters are from across the political spectrum, across Australian electorates, and from different
socio-economic positions. We seek non-partisan responses to climate change and its impacts.

We are focused on encouraging Australian governments and businesses to take urgent action to cut Australia’s
carbon emissions to net zero as quickly as possible. We encourage Australia to take a leadership role on the
world stage, leading by example and calling for other nations to take the necessary action to protect our
children’s futures.

For more information, visit www.ap4ca.org
Submission
Australian Parents for Climate Action welcomes the opportunity to make a submission to the the Department of
Industry, Science, Energy and Resources regarding the 2022 Offshore Petroleum Exploration Acreage Release.

We are responding to the call to comment on the potential areas for release nominated by the industry for
consideration in the 2022 Offshore Petroleum Exploration acreage release which include: Bonaparte Basin,
Browse Basin, Northern Carnarvon Basin and Gippsland Basin.

Ongoing exploitation of Australia’s national oil and gas resources, and encouraging future petroleum exploration
is against the public interest, including that of future generations. Expanding petroleum exploration is at odds
with the best environmental, social and economic outcomes for Australia now and into the future. Australian
Parents for Climate Action, on behalf of its more than 16,000 supporters, strongly opposes ongoing exploitation
of Australia’s national oil and gas resources and urges a rapid transition to renewable energy sources.

The maximum benefit to the Australian public that can be afforded by our national oil and gas resources is to
move to a rapid phase out of the extractive industries in Australia and a commensurate scale-up of renewable
energy sources. This would deliver the most advantage and least harm to Australians today, and for generations
to come.

The benefits a rapid reduction of oil and gas extraction would offer to the Australian public are to:
1. Ameliorate further climate risks from ongoing fossil fuel extraction
2. Deliver on the Australian Government’s moral responsibility and duty of care to children
3. Facilitate Australia to meet its international obligations and protect its international standing
4. Position Australia as a renewable energy superpower.

These four benefits are elaborated below:

1. A rapid reduction of oil and gas exploitation would ameliorate further climate
risks from fossil fuel extraction

Consumption of oil and gas is unequivocally linked to climate change.1 Following the release of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Working Group I sixth report in August 2021, United Nations
Secretary-General, Antonio Gutteres, said, “This report must sound a death knell for coal and fossil fuels, before
they destroy our planet. Countries should also end all new fossil fuel exploration and production, and shift fossil
fuel subsidies into renewable energy.”2

Australia must urgently heed Secretary-General Gutteres’ advice. Already, Australia is witnessing the
devastating effects of climate change linked to fossil fuel burning. Anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG)
emissions are causing rapid increases in average global temperatures. In turn, that heating is causing climate
change, which has, with about 1°C of average warming so far, already caused a substantial shift in climatic

1
Hmiel, B., Petrenko, V.V., Dyonisius, M.N. et al., 2020, Preindustrial 14CH4 indicates greater anthropogenic fossil CH4 emissions. Nature 578, 409–412
2
United Nations, 2021, Secretary-General Calls Latest IPCC Climate Report 'Code Red for Humanity', Stressing 'Irrefutable' Evidence of Human Influence
| Meetings Coverage and Press Releases

Australian Parents for Climate Action Submission – 2022 Offshore Petroleum Exploration Acreage Release
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conditions. That warming is highly unfavourable to biodiversity, food and water security, human health and
safety, and the longevity/value of many property assets and infrastructure.3

Although some long-term impacts of climate change are already locked in, such as ocean temperature increases
and sea level rise, the worst impacts can be avoided if we take urgent action to rapidly reduce emissions.
Reducing methane and other greenhouse gas emissions through a rapid reduction of Australia’s oil and gas
industry would contribute to slowing down temperature rise.4

The impacts of climate change, such as increased natural disaster will have a significant social and economic
impact on all Australians. A 2021 report by the Australian Business Roundtable for Disaster Resilience & Safer
Communities found that the cost to Australia from worsening natural disasters, just one environmental impact of
climate change, will rise from $38 billion per year on average to estimated increase to $73 billion per year by
2060, even under a low emissions scenario. Any benefit of expanded oil exploration to Australia is significantly
offset by the associated costs.5

The social and health costs to communities affected by worsening natural disasters, such as prolonged droughts,
floods, increased intensity fires and hurricanes and the social displacement caused must not be overlooked. The
complete disruption to whole industries and communities from climate change, such as those that rely on the
Great Barrier Reefs survival as one example, cannot be measured in economic costs alone. Any expansion of oil
and gas resources contributes to worsening climate change and puts jobs, communities, health, infrastructure and
all future prosperity at risk.

2. Cessation of Australia’s extractive industries would deliver on the Australian
Government’s moral responsibility and duty of care to children

The recent Australian landmark case of Sharma v Minister for the Environment established that the Minister for
the Environment has a “duty to take reasonable care, in the exercise of her powers under s130 and s133 of the
[EPBC Act] in respect of the [Vickery coal mine expansion] to avoid causing personal injury or death to persons
who were under 18 of age and ordinarily resident in Australia at the time of the commencement of this
proceeding arising from emissions of carbon dioxide into the Earth’s atmosphere” (our emphasis). 6

This case established accountability for governments in relation to the climate impacts of extractive initiatives
and paves the way for claims of negligence at common law relating to climate change caused by emissions
linked to the activities of governments and extractive industries. Beyond the legal implications of this finding,
Justice Bromberg’s arresting decision clearly articulates the impact on children of governments’ decisions to
continue to extract fossil fuels in the face of unequivocal evidence of their link to climate change:

It is difficult to characterise in a single phrase the devastation that the plausible evidence presented in this
proceeding forecasts for the Children. As Australian adults know their country, Australia will be lost and the
World as we know it gone as well. The physical environment will be harsher, far more extreme and
devastatingly brutal when angry. As for the human experience – quality of life, opportunities to partake in
nature’s treasures, the capacity to grow and prosper – all will be greatly diminished. Lives will be cut short.

3
NSW Government, Impacts of climate change
4
Climate Council, 2021, UN Report: Massive Wake-Up Call to Cut Emissions
5
Insurance Australia Group Limited (IAG): Natural Disasters estimated to cost Australia $73 billion per year by 2060
6
Sharma v Minister for the Environment (No 2) [2021] FCA 744 (Bromberg J) 8 July 2021

Australian Parents for Climate Action Submission – 2022 Offshore Petroleum Exploration Acreage Release
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Trauma will be far more common and good health harder to hold and maintain. None of this will be the fault
of nature itself. It will largely be inflicted by the inaction of this generation of adults, in what might fairly be
described as the greatest inter-generational injustice ever inflicted by one generation of humans upon the
next.

As parents, we urge the Australian government to take urgent action to rapidly reduce fossil fuel extraction,
including petroleum expansion, to spare our children the worst of the future envisaged by Justice Bromberg.

3. Facilitate Australia to meet its international obligations and protect its
international standing

Australia’s obligations under the Paris Climate Agreement are to hold “the increase in the global average
temperature to well below 2oC… and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5oC… recognising
that this would significantly reduce the risks and impacts of climate change.”7
In its 2021 report, Net Zero by 2050, A Roadmap for the Global Energy Sector, the International Energy Agency
confirmed that global commitments “still fall well short of what is needed to limit the rise in global temperatures
to 1.5 °C and avert the worst effects of climate change.”8 As part of its roadmap, it outlined that “... there are no
new oil and gas fields approved for development in our pathway, and no new coal mines or mine extensions are
required.”

There is a pathway to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees, but it is narrow and requires urgent action.
Australia is increasingly being called upon by global allies to shoulder its weight in global emissions reductions
with like-minded nations signing up to ambitious emissions reductions targets.

The speed at which Australia reduces emissions is critical: winning slowly on climate is still losing. We do not
have the technology to effectively remove GHGs from the atmosphere at the gigatonne scale required.9 We need
to be avoiding the release of GHGs, rather than simply hoping to recapture them, recognising that any delay in
climate action only serves to make the task far more difficult for our children. The rapid reduction of oil and gas
extraction provides the quickest and clearest way for Australia to participate in the international community
effort to limit global heating to 1.5 degrees.

The Secretary-General of the IPCC was very clear in his response to the 2021 IPCC Climate Report

This report must sound a death knell for coal and fossil fuels, before they destroy our planet. There must be
no new coal plants built after 2021. OECD [Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development]
countries must phase out existing coal by 2030, with all others following suit by 2040. Countries should also
end all new fossil fuel exploration and production, and shift fossil-fuel subsidies into renewable energy. 10

7
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, 2015, ADOPTION OF THE PARIS AGREEMENT - Paris Agreement text English
8
International Energy Agency, 2021, Net Zero by 2050 – Analysis
9
Scientists Warning, 2018, ‘Direct Air Capture’
10
United Nations, 2021, Secretary-General Calls Latest IPCC Climate Report 'Code Red for Humanity', Stressing 'Irrefutable' Evidence of Human
Influence | Meetings Coverage and Press Releases

Australian Parents for Climate Action Submission – 2022 Offshore Petroleum Exploration Acreage Release
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4. Position Australia as a renewable energy superpower

Australia is ideally positioned to be a global leader in renewable energy given its national resources of wind and
solar energy. These are national resources that can be exploited while offering maximum benefit to Australians
with minimum harm. If Australia were to rapidly reduce its extractive industries while urgently scaling up
renewable energy (and electrifying transport, buildings and industries) it would be able to ameliorate the worst
risks of climate change and reap immense economic benefits while also meeting its international obligations and
moral responsibilities.

Hundreds of thousands of jobs and new export industries can be created in Australia by incentivising projects
such as:

● Rolling out 100% renewable electricity and storage as quickly as possible by expanding Renewable
Energy Zones and ensuring transmission and energy market regulation is appropriately aligned.
● Installing solar and batteries in all schools and child care centres.11
● Improving energy efficiency in buildings including social housing.
● Converting gas appliances in buildings to electric.
● Kickstarting the market and distribution mechanisms for green hydrogen (produced via electrolysis from
renewable electricity) in order to rapidly drive its cost down so it is competitive with fossil gas.
● Accelerating the uptake of electric and hydrogen vehicles (such as by reducing registration and other
on-road costs, through government fleet purchasing and roll-out of charging stations).
● Helping industrial users of gas pilot and rollout alternatives (either electric or green hydrogen based).

Global commitments to meet the aims of the Paris Climate Agreement dictate that fossil fuels are not energies of
the future, but necessarily in decline as the world moves towards achieving net zero emissions as quickly as
possible. The social, environmental and economic well being of all Australians depends on this starting today.

To maximise the public moral, economic and environmental benefits of Australia’s national oil and gas
reserves, the Australian Government must focus on a rapid reduction of oil and gas extraction and
consumption and an immediate scale-up of a transition to renewable energy.

11
See Australian Parents for Climate Action’s Solar Our Schools campaign: https://www.ap4ca.org/joinsolarourschools

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