The Albanese government\u2019s decision to approve one of the world\u2019s largest gas projects in Western Australia is being challenged in the federal court, setting up a significant test of how Australia\u2019s environment law deals with the climate crisis.<\/p>\n
The Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) and Friends of Australian Rock Art (Fara) are this week running concurrent court challenges against the approval of the extension of Woodside\u2019s major North West Shelf gas export project.<\/p>\n
The environment minister Murray Watt\u2019s approval of the project last year<\/a> was met with fury from conservationists and the Greens.<\/p>\n The approval, allowing Woodside\u2019s Karratha gas processing plant to operate until 2070, has been described as a \u201ccarbon bomb\u201d and according to ACF would see about 4bn tonnes of CO2 released into the atmosphere \u2013 equivalent to about 10 years of Australia\u2019s annual emissions.<\/p>\n Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email<\/a><\/p>\n The gas plant operates beside the Murujuga indigenous rock art complex \u2013 a landscape of more than a million petroglyphs dating back 50,000 years, including the oldest known image of a human face.<\/p>\n In a significant step, a UN special rapporteur has been allowed to intervene in the case to advise the court of Australia\u2019s international climate obligations.<\/p>\n Representatives from Fara and ACF and their supporters gathered outside court in Melbourne on Tuesday before the case before Justice Catherine Button.<\/p>\n Adam Bandt, chief executive of the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF), said: \u201cIt will be up to the court to decide the merits of the case \u2026 We\u2019re here saying the minister made the wrong decision and that some very significant factors including around climate change need to be taken into account.\u201d<\/p>\n The ACF will argue the minster failed to properly consider how emissions from the gas plant could be a \u201csubstantial cause\u201d of damage to Australia\u2019s protected environment.<\/p>\n The conservation group will argue the minister didn\u2019t have enough detail about the gas the plan was going to process \u2013 partly because it would involve processing third-party gas from as yet unapproved projects \u2013 to make a decision.<\/p>\n The ACF will also argue the minister incorrectly considered the claimed economic benefits of the gas plant, a point also being argued by Fara.<\/p>\n Critics, including Fara, have argued industrial emissions from the plant are already causing erosion of the petroglyphs and this would be worsened by the decision to extend the project.<\/p>\n While government-backed monitoring of the rock art has mostly dismissed those concerns, some scientists remain unconvinced.<\/p>\n