Green groups fume as Canberra rejects world’s biggest renewables project
Canberra has rejected an application to build the world’s biggest renewable energy project in an Australian desert, infuriating groups hoping the government would take a more aggressive stance against climate change.
The government warned that the A$50bn green hydrogen export project threatened sensitive wetland areas and migratory bird species.
The decision represents a U-turn by Canberra, which last year supported fast tracking construction of the Asian Renewable Energy Hub on a 6,500 sq km site in a remote region in Western Australia.
“The minister concluded that the proposal would have unacceptable impacts on matters of national environmental significance,” said a spokesman for Sussan Ley, Australia’s minister for environment, on Monday.
The consortium behind the hub said it would revise its proposal to build solar and wind farms in the Pilbara, an area better known for liquefied natural gas.
But the decision to knock back the project has alarmed groups that want the conservative government to commit to a national target of net zero emissions by 2050.
“Once again, the federal government has demonstrated that it is unwilling to support projects that would accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels,” said Dan Gocher at the Australasian Centre for Corporate Responsibility.
“If the government is to be taken seriously on developing a hydrogen economy, companies prioritising genuinely zero emissions projects should be assisted to reach a final investment decision.”
Last month, the government vetoed a proposal by one of its own development agencies to provide a A$280m loan to co-found a renewable project in Queensland backed by French company Neoen.
The decision to reject the hub consortium application coincides with a bitter debate within the ruling Liberal-National coalition over whether to embrace net zero emissions by 2050.
The US and UK lobbied Scott Morrison, Australia’s prime minister, at the recent G7 meeting in Cornwall to commit to the target before a UN climate conference in Glasgow in November.
But the issue is politically toxic in Australia, where friction over climate change has claimed the scalps of several prime ministers over the past 15 years and stymied efforts to reduce emissions.
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On Monday, the climate wars struck again when the National party, the junior coalition partner to the Liberal party, ousted Michael McCormack, its leader and deputy prime minister, in favour of Barnaby Joyce.
Analysts said Joyce had capitalised on National party concerns that McCormack had not objected to Morrison’s recent statements that he would like to reach net zero, “preferably by 2050”.
The elevation of Joyce, a climate sceptic and supporter of coal mining, to the post of deputy prime minister for the second time complicates the government’s task in uniting behind climate policies, they said.
“This change of [National party] leadership makes prime minister Scott Morrison’s job to commit to net zero by 2050 far harder,” said Sarah Maddison, a politics professor at University of Melbourne.