The gas paradox at the heart of Labor’s climate agenda
The Albanese government says gas and climate action can go hand in hand. But its own strategy shows just how fraught that balancing act really is.
For anyone closely following Canberra politics, the Albanese government’s approval — albeit with conditions — of Woodside’s North West Shelf extension straight after the federal election was pretty much a given.
A year earlier, in May 2024, Madeleine King, the federal resources minister, had released the government’s Future Gas Strategy and one of its six guiding principles was that Australia “is and will remain” a reliable trading partner for energy, including LNG exports. Unveiling the strategy, King echoed the words of Premier of Western Australia Roger Cook and Woodside CEO Meg O’Neill: our trading partners are relying on Australian gas to transition their economies to net zero.
The gas strategy shocked the climate movement, teal MPs and even some Labor backbenchers, because it appeared to lock Australia into major gas production and exports for decades to come.
The Climate Council’s Dr Jennifer Rayner called it an echo of the past: “Now is not the moment to add to our climate crisis by burning more gas. Signing Australia up to a future made on gas ignores climate scientists, who warn we are at risk of smashing through 1.5ºC of warming.”
