Public finance institutions in Japan and South Korea, funded by taxpayers in those countries, have poured US$20.5 billion into Australian gas export projects since 2008, underwriting the commercial viability of risky, climate-damaging gas projects, a new report reveals.
Released today by Jubilee Australia, the Australian Conservation Foundation and the Fossil Free Japan Coalition, the report exposes the extent of the Japanese and Korean governments' heavy investment in the extraction, processing, transport and deployment of Australian gas - and the Australian government's enabling of this strategy.
The report shows:
- Japan and Korea contributed US$20.5 billion to Australian gas projects from 2008 to 2024.
- Japan's export credit agency JBIC is responsible for 64% of this finance and is backing most existing and proposed Australian gas projects, including the North West Shelf, Barossa, Scarborough, Pluto, Gorgon and Curtis Island.
- While Japan's government claims Australian gas 'keeps the lights on in Tokyo', in fact Japanese buyers are over-contracted and re-sell surplus gas to other Asian countries feeding artificial demand that drives further expansion, slowing the energy transition.
- While Australia has committed to end its own public financing of fossil fuels overseas through the Clean Energy Transition Partnership (CETP), it allows and encourages overseas governments to underwrite gas expansion in Australia.
"The scale of gas expansion facilitated by the Albanese government would drastically ramp up climate-heating emissions and poses disastrous economic, environmental and social risks to communities across the region," said ACF's climate program manager Gavan McFadzean.
"Gas is a highly polluting fossil fuel, the burning of which is turbocharging bushfires, heatwaves, coral bleaching and flooding in Australia and around the world.
"This report shows the Australian government's actions are playing into a wider strategy that allows companies like JERA, Mitsui and Inpex to build massive profits from Australian gas.
"The government's Future Gas Strategy, which envisages Australia opening new gas fields and continuing to burn and export the fossil fuel well beyond 2050, is a blueprint for climate disaster and should be abandoned."
