Category Archives: Fracking

Emissions of Beetaloo Basin gas projects ‘significantly underestimated’ by government, analysis finds

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Climate Analytics says onshore emissions of proposed fracking understated by up to 84% in ‘a rosy picture that simply doesn’t reflect reality’

Fracking to extract gas from the Northern Territory’s Beetaloo Basin could lead to much larger greenhouse gas emissions than the territory government has claimed, according to new analysis.

The report by Climate Analytics, and commissioned by the Nurrdalinji Aboriginal Corporation, finds the projected emissions associated with proposed gas developments in the Beetaloo basin had been significantly underestimated in government modelling, while the availability of carbon offsets had been overestimated.

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Fracking projects in NT risk exposing people to cancer and birth defects, report finds

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Recent studies from the US have seen evidence for health harms from oil and gas projects grow ‘substantially stronger’, experts say

Fracking projects fast-tracked by the Australian government risk exposing people to cancer, birth defects, asthma, cardiovascular disease and other harms, a new report published on Monday has found.

The report, led by the University of Sydney, was written in response to paediatricians in the Northern Territory who are deeply concerned about a full-scale fracking industry in the Beetaloo Basin. Guardian Australia’s exclusive investigation revealed the proposed Middle Arm industrial development on Darwin harbour would enable the export of gas from the basin, despite the project being labelled a “sustainable development precinct”.

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Woodside faces Indigenous legal challenge to seismic blasting at WA gas site

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Traditional owner alleges company failed to adequately consult on effect of Scarborough project blasting on sea country

A traditional owner has filed a legal challenge to the approval of seismic blasting for Woodside’s Scarborough offshore gas project in Western Australia.

Mardudhunera woman Raelene Cooper is seeking a judicial review of the offshore petroleum regulator Nopsema’s decision to grant the approval despite concerns consultation with traditional owners had been inadequate.

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Australia politics live: Pocock claims Labor adopting Coalition’s ‘gas-led recovery’ and doing bare minimum on climate crisis

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Doctors press Labor over NT gas projects

More than 2,000 doctors, GPs and health professionals have now signed a letter to the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, demanding the government reconsider subsidising the Middle Arm project and “intervene to prevent gas fracking in the Beetaloo Basin, acknowledging that the emissions cannot be fully offset”.

We do not want these industries to be established in Darwin due to the risk they pose to the population and the risk they pose to the whole of Australia by driving the climate crisis.

We would like governments around Australia to put the health of their people first and understand the principle of first do no harm when considering the approval of projects like this.

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Australia politics live: Mehreen Faruqi says housing fund standoff ‘not about playing political games’

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Independent Kooyong MP Dr Monique Ryan said the crossbench was distressed by the past week in parliament:

I can speak for other members of the crossbench because we talk to each other after each question time because we found it distressing, and we wanted to stand to our feet and say that we felt it was conduct unbecoming parliament, and I think if we learn nothing from this, we have to decide as a society whether we want our parliament really to be dragging people who have gone through really difficult experiences through that sort of experience again. It wasn’t ideal. It was – I actually felt it was shameful.

I think there were serious questions that needed to be asked in the face of a minister misleading the Senate and we asked questions about who knew what, when, what was done with that information – all very legitimate questions, and this issue, when it was last in parliament was pursued ferociously by the then opposition and I think we were very careful as we could be with our tone, but to also ask legitimate questions of the government and their ministers, not just around who knew what when but also around the swiftness of the compensation payment, why some evidence in that process was explicitly excluded, and that, you know, the substantial nature of it – all legitimate questions and the right thing to do.

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Origin Energy surrenders 10 controversial gas tenements in Queensland’s channel country

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Company gives up 10 of its 11 leases in the area amid concern about potential impacts of fracking

Australia’s largest energy company has surrendered 10 controversial gas tenements in Queensland’s channel country, as the state government embarks on long-delayed consultation over environmental protections for the sensitive Lake Eyre-Kati Thanda basin.

Origin Energy and the Queensland resources department confirmed the “total surrender” of 10 of the 11 production leases held by the company in the area, amid concerns about the impact of potential fracking plans on its unique waterways and floodplains.

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NT government knew it could not reduce climate risk when it greenlit ‘carbon bomb’ gas production in Beetaloo Basin

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Exclusive: New documents also reveal federal government admitted Australia did not have policies to ensure project would meet key recommendation in full

New documents reveal the Northern Territory government knew it could not meet a key recommendation to reduce the climate risk of its planned massive expansion of gas production, and asked the Albanese government for help.

Federal climate change officials in turn admitted Australia did not have any existing policies that would meet the recommendation in full.

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Beetaloo Basin inquiry calls for national plan to offset vast emissions expected from gas projects

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Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young says Labor support for recommendations is a ‘huge blow’ to companies trying to frack in the NT

An inquiry into major plans to exploit gas in the Northern Territory’s Beetaloo Basin has recommended the federal government commit to a national plan to offset the vast emissions the project is expected to release.

The former government made gas exploration in the Beetaloo Basin a central tenet of its plans for recovering from the Covid pandemic, using grants and tax breaks to incentivise gas corporates to begin work in the region. The basin covers about 28,000 sq km south-east of Katherine and is thought to contain huge reserves of shale gas.

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Cop26 one year on: how much progress has been made?

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As the UN’s Cop27 summit begins in Egypt, there are warnings more must be done to avert climate breakdown

Last year’s UN Cop26 climate talks in Scotland were framed by John Kerry, the US special presidential envoy on the climate crisis, as the “last best hope for the world to get its act together” and avert climate breakdown. As world leaders gather in Egypt for Cop27, evidence suggests they have yet to fully do so.

The Glasgow conference drew collective promises by governments to “phase down” coal use, curb deforestation, advance remedial payments to developing countries hit hardest by floods, heatwaves and droughts, and to come back the following year with more ambitious emissions reduction targets.

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Rishi Sunak will keep ban on fracking in UK, No 10 confirms

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PM said he stood by Tories’ 2019 manifesto policy when asked in Commons, in rebuff to Liz Truss

Fracking will in effect remain banned under Rishi Sunak’s government, his spokesperson confirmed on Wednesday, saying the new prime minister was committed to the policy in the 2019 manifesto.

The confirmation came after the prime minister told the Commons that he “stands by” the manifesto, which put a moratorium on shale gas extraction.

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Dozens of Tories facing disciplinary action after fracking vote

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MPs face potentially losing whip after No 10 confirms chaotic vote is being treated as confidence issue

Dozens of Conservative MPs are facing potential disciplinary action or losing the party whip after Downing Street announced that a chaotic vote on fracking was being treated as a confidence issue.

It was widely reported that Liz Truss’s chief whip, Wendy Morton, and the deputy chief whip, Craig Whittaker, had stepped down after disorderly scenes, with MPs alleging ministers physically pulled some wavering Tories into the voting lobbies.

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Suella Braverman replaced by Grant Shapps; Labour motion calling for fracking ban fails – live

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Home secretary departs after sending an official document by personal email but uses resignation letter to criticise PM

Plans to create Great British Railways, a public sector body to oversee Britain’s railways, have been delayed, MPs have been told.

Anne-Marie Trevelyan, the transport secretary, told the Commons transport committee that the transport bill, which would have set up the new body, has been delayed because legislation to deal with the energy crisis is being prioritised. She said:

The challenges of things like the energy legislation we’ve got to bring in and various others has meant that we have lost the opportunity to have that [bill] in this third session.

What we are continuing to pitch for will be what I would call a narrow bill around the future of transport technologies, the legislation around things like e-scooters.

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Tory MPs mull backing Labour attempt to force binding fracking vote

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Opposition motion drafted to make it very difficult for government to ignore or allow mass abstentions

Labour will attempt to force a binding vote on fracking on Wednesday, as Tory MPs mull backing a bid which would allow the opposition to put down a bill banning shale gas extraction.

The motion submitted by Labour for its opposition day debate is drafted to make it very difficult for the government to ignore the vote or allow mass abstentions.

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Labour vows to treble solar power use during first term if elected

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Ed Miliband criticises Liz Truss’s ‘anti-green-energy dogma’ after plans to ban solar projects revealed

Labour has criticised prime minister Liz Truss’s plan to ban solar power from most of England’s farmland and vowed to treble the renewable energy source in its first term.

Ed Miliband, the shadow climate secretary, will visit a solar farm on Friday. He is to lay out his opposition to plans by Truss and her environment secretary, Ranil Jayawardena, who the Guardian revealed earlier this week are hoping to ban solar from about 41% of the land area of England, or about 58% of agricultural land.

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Tory MPs angrily challenge Rees-Mogg’s fracking revival plan

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Energy secretary considers bypassing local planning rules as backbenchers voice opposition

Ministers face a furious backlash from Conservative MPs after overturning a manifesto pledge to pause fracking until it is proved safe, and then indicating drilling could be imposed without local support.

Outlining a return to shale gas extraction in England after three years, Jacob Rees-Mogg dismissed worries about earthquakes caused by the practice as “hysteria”, claiming this was often down to a lack of scientific understanding.

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National insurance increase will be reversed from 6 November, says Kwasi Kwarteng – UK politics live

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The chancellor says the move will save 28m people £330 on average next year

Catholics outnumber Protestants in Northern Ireland for the first time, a demographic milestone for a state that was designed a century ago to have a permanent Protestant majority, my colleague Rory Carroll reports.

Thérèse Coffey is deputy prime minister as well as health secretary. Speaking on ITV’s Good Morning Britain this morning, and responding to a question from the former Labour MP Ed Balls, who was presenting, she said that as deputy PM whould be would “chairing things like the home affairs committee and different elements like that”. But she rejected claims this meant she would be doing the health job part time. She said:

I’m conscious that in two weeks we’ve already pulled together our plan for patients and we will continue to develop that.

I don’t think it will be a case of being part-time ... We don’t have fixed working hours.

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PM expected to reverse fracking ban as campaigners call for review’s release

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BEIS has been sitting on report delivered in early July into possible effect of fracking in UK

Liz Truss must publish a recently completed review on fracking in the UK, green campaigners have urged, amid expectations the new prime minister will lift the moratorium on shale gas drilling immediately.

The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has been sitting on a report delivered in early July by the British Geological Survey into the possible effects of fracking in the UK, including the danger of Earth tremors.

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Liz Truss holds first cabinet meeting as Thérèse Coffey denies claim PM put loyalty before competence – UK politics live

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Health secretary says Truss did not focus too much on rewarding friends as new ministers attend first cabinet meeting

According to a report by Jason Groves in the Daily Mail, Liz Truss may announce an end to the ban on fracking this week. During the leadership campaign she said she wanted to allow fracking, but only in areas where there was a clear public consensus in favour.

On the Today programme this morning Lord Deben, the Tory peer who chairs the Committee for Climate Change, said fracking was not a solution to the UK’s energy problems. He explained:

The price of gas is not affected by the relatively small amount that we can get, in addition to the North Sea or indeed from fracking.

This is an international price and we would be paying the same price we got out of the fracked gas as we are for the gas we’re using now.

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NT Labor members at odds with government after call to ban fracking in Beetaloo Basin

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Northern Territory party conference passes string of motions urging a ban on fracking and an end to gas industry subsidies

Grassroots Northern Territory Labor members passed a string of motions on the weekend calling for a ban on fracking in the Beetaloo Basin and an end to gas industry subsidies, putting themselves at odds with both the territory and federal Labor governments.

The previous federal Coalition government helped speed up gas exploration in the resource-rich Beetaloo Basin, about 500km south-east of Darwin, by handing tens of millions of dollars to fracking companies to incentivise exploration.

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Johnson takes jibe at Truss plans for fracking and North Sea drilling

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Outgoing leader hails £700m funding for Sizewell C nuclear plant in penultimate speech

• Boris Johnson says ‘madness’ not to build Sizewell C – UK politics live

Boris Johnson has vowed to give his total support to the next prime minister, but could not resist using his penultimate speech to take a potshot at Liz Truss’s energy plans.

In an attempt to shore up his legacy just days before he leaves No 10, the outgoing Conservative leader hailed the government’s “accelerated, long-overdue reforms” to make the UK more energy independent and announced £700m for the Sizewell C nuclear plant.

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