Today’s announcement that Australia has signed an international agreement on rogue methane emissions in the fossil gas sector is a joke and a smokescreen that actually hands the right to continue polluting to companies.
So says Friends of the Earth’s Offshore Fossil Gas Campaigner, Jeff Waters, who describes it as a deplorable attempt at public relations spin that does nothing to stop our planet spiralling toward a climate disaster.
The agreement, signed along with other major polluters the USA, EU, Japan and South Korea, which promises to address the massive and often unmeasured emissions of methane (branded by the industry as “natural gas”), is only voluntary.
It will be left to companies to decide whether or not to do anything.
Jeff Waters said you only have to look to Santos’ leaking Legendre gas field to see how a voluntary system works.
“Santos voluntarily kept quiet for ten years about the fact its Legendre gas well has been leaking since it was retired,” Jeff Waters said.
“And when it finally became public that this well had been leaking methane for a decade, Santos volunteered to take action by only monitoring it.”
“The toxic methane Santos is voluntarily releasing into our atmosphere is almost 90 times worse for global warming than carbon dioxide, and the company admits it has no idea how much is being released.”
“Successive governments have volunteered to allow Santos to just keep releasing this methane.”
It is unknown how many other retired wells off Australia’s coast are leaking methane.
“It’s about time an Australian government volunteered to prosecute polluters, or at least force them into stopping their existing pollution,” Jeff Waters said.
“Otherwise this agreement is a joke and a smokescreen to help the oil and gas industry to continue to pollute our atmosphere.”
Key Facts:
– New international agreement only voluntary
– No compulsion to stop emitting methane
– Santos well leaking methane for a decade
