Australian Conservation Foundation v Woodside Energy

COURT OR TRIBUNAL

Federal Court of Australia

DATE FILED (OR FIRST HEARING DATE)

21/06/2022

LITIGATION TYPE

Project Approval - Mitigation

SUBJECT MATTER

Gas and Oil

REVIEW TYPE

Judicial review

SUMMARY

A new climate case has been filed by the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) in the Federal Court. Lawyers for the ACF are seeking an injunction to stop Woodside’s controversial Scarborough gas project from going ahead, arguing that the potential harms of greenhouse gas emissions from the project on the Great Barrier Reef must be assessed. Despite potentially significant climate change impacts, the Scarborough gas project has never been approved under Australia’s environmental protection law, the EPBC Act.

This is because an Australia law allows all offshore gas and oil projects to be assessed under a streamlined process by the offshore regulator, the National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environment Management Authority (NOPSEMA). The EPBC Act also does not include a “climate trigger” requiring the climate change impacts of projects to be assessed.

Lawyers for the ACF will therefore argue that the project is likely to have significant impacts to the heritage values of the Great Barrier Reef. Even though the gas will mainly be burned in other countries and not close to the Reef, the lawyers will argue that the burning and consumption of the coal in other countries will increase greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere, increase global average surface temperature, and result in coral deaths and mass bleaching in the Great Barrier Reef.

They will also argue that this streamlined approval process does not apply to the Scarborough gas project because of its impacts on the heritage values of the Great Barrier Reef. As such, the Scarborough gas project must be stopped until its environmental impacts are assessed.