“These reforms will reduce net emissions from designated large facilities to zero by 2050, such emissions currently contribute more than half of Western Australia’s total emissions,” he said.
Greens MLC Brad Pettit accused the government of “washing their hands” of responsibility to assess greenhouse gas emissions on some of the dirtiest projects in the pipeline like Woodside’s Browse gas project.
“Regulatory changes to the way the EPA assesses greenhouse gas emissions for major projects are deeply troubling given Western Australia is the only state where emissions are rising,” he said.
Whitby said if the Commonwealth tinkered with the safeguard mechanism in the future, proponents would be required to alert the state of changes to their obligations, and they may have state limits applied or reestablished.
He also reaffirmed the government’s commitment to legislate the state’s target of net zero by 2050, but did not put a timeframe on when that will happen.
WA’s greenhouse gas policy created political shockwaves in 2019 when the EPA released a draft policy recommending that new projects or extensions that put more than 100,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide into the air offset all those emissions right away.
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It caused a meltdown in the state’s resources sector, with executives from Chevron, Shell and Woodside immediately lobbying former WA premier Mark McGowan to pressure the EPA to reverse its decision.
The EPA eventually revised its policy to require new projects to demonstrate how they would reach net-zero emissions by 2050.
The Chamber of Minerals and Energy was contacted for comment.
