The Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) has today launched a new legal challenge against Environment Minister Murray Watt.
The national environment advocacy group will argue he failed to consider the devastating climate impacts of Woodside's plan to extend its North West Shelf gas project running to 2070.
This is the second major case ACF has filed against the Minister this month, escalating its push to hold the government accountable for decisions that ignore the climate consequences of new fossil fuel projects.
The new case targets a decision made by Minister Watt in May this year to affirm former Environment Minister Sussan Ley's assessment that the 4 billion tonnes of climate pollution Woodside's gas expansion would generate did not need to be assessed under Australia's national environment law.
That's pollution that will cook the Great Barrier Reef, threaten Ningaloo's rich marine life, and push already struggling wildlife closer to extinction.
"When Labor came to power, we expected better," ACF's Legal Counsel Adam Beeson said. "Minister Watt had clear scientific evidence and a chance to make a better decision than the previous Coalition government, but he backed in Sussan Ley's flawed call and ignored the climate consequences of Woodside's massive gas expansion."
Minister Watt's decision allows Woodside's North West Shelf facility to keep pumping out climate-wrecking gas until 2070.
"This gas project will generate nearly four billion tonnes of emissions. That's almost ten times Australia's annual domestic pollution. Yet our Environment Minister has decided that's just a drop in the ocean. We vehemently disagree," said Beeson.
ACF's new court challenge will argue that the Minister was not legally permitted to exclude the climate damage caused by the project when deciding whether and how to assess it under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act.
If successful, the case could set an important precedent, ensuring that the climate impacts of coal and gas projects can no longer be ignored when governments assess damage to Australia's World Heritage reefs, wetlands, and threatened species.
"Litigation is not easy. It's risky and it's expensive," Mr Beeson said. "We wouldn't do this if we had any other option. And importantly, we wouldn't have to take this route if Australia had strong nature laws to begin with, which made the government's responsibility to deal with climate pollution crystal clear.
"But because our current nature laws are shockingly broken and favour polluting industries over the nature they claim to protect, litigation is necessary to argue that the Minister was required to deal with climate pollution.
"This case brings home why it's so important Labor gets on with the task this week of making our national environment law actually work for nature.
"The test of Labor's commitment will be the legislation that is tabled in Parliament this week. We need our new nature laws be up to the task of stopping terrible polluting projects from being rubber stamped in the first place."
ACF is represented by Environmental Justice Australia.
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