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It is the Climate Council’s firm position that this project should not be approved.

The concerns we highlight are centred on the following key facts:

• Meeting globally-agreed temperature goals requires a well planned, but nonetheless rapid, transition to a fully decarbonised energy system. The immediate, deep and permanent level of greenhouse gas emissions reduction required to stabilise global temperatures at the globally agreed goals mean that there is no more room for new gas infrastructure. The project should be rejected on that basis alone.
• The data provided by the proponent relating to emissions from their project is based on science which is more than a decade old and conditions present on a different continent. The proponent has made no effort to show how conditions there are relevant to the Australian experience.
• The best available energy system modelling, including that produced by the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO), shows that new gas-powered generation capacity is not required in New South Wales or anywhere else in the National Electricity Market (NEM) any time between now and 2041.
• New gas-powered generation will not reduce the emissions intensity of the New South Wales grid relative to the counterfactual where it is not built. The proponent’s emissions estimates deviate wildly from contemporaneous assessments using the same version of the same methodology. The proponent has not attempted to disclose any of the assumptions underpinning their assessment making it impossible to quantify their clear errors.
• As a result of COVID-19 and its impact on the global market for oil and gas, the gas shortfall predicted by AEMO is now exceptionally unlikely to materialise and locking in a decadeslong fossil fuel project to avoid it is the worst answer to this now-hypothetical problem.

DOWNLOAD THE FULL SUBMISSION HERE

DOWNLOAD THE FULL SUBMISSION HERE