If there's one key lesson to take away from the controversy surrounding the suppression of a report we commissioned on the true climate change impacts of coal seam gas (CSG), it's that vested oil and gas interests trump the public interest.
The expansionist industry claims CSG is a "clean" energy alternative to coal, and has used the fuel's supposed climate change friendliness to give itself a social licence to operate.
Earlier in the year, the fossil fuel lobby group, the Australian Petroleum Producers and Export Association (APPEA), commissioned Worley Parsons to report on the climate change impacts of CSG. It used the report to support their "clean" energy claims, however, the report was kept secret until just two weeks ago which has prevented independent scrutiny of the document for months.
Rather than relying on the industry itself to be its own judge and jury, my organisation, the independent climate change research group Beyond Zero Emissions, engaged Worley Parsons to investigate CSG with a broader scope. Our research proposal would have wider boundaries to capture more emissions from the lifecycle; would recommend the use of Australian field data; and compare CSG's lifecycle emissions to other energy resources, including renewables here, in Japan and in China.
The Drum
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