Wodside's Pluto LNG Plant, onshore gas plant in Western Aystralia. Photo Source: Woodside - Media Library

By Patryk Krych | The World Daily | NOVEMBER 24th 2021 

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison had expressed delight when final investment approval was given to a major fossil fuel project in Australia – a project which green groups have repeatedly warned would be disastrous for the environment.

On Wednesday afternoon, PM Morrison told the senior members on the Business Council of Australia that he “did a bit of a jig” upon hearing the news that the energy giant Woodside had given the final approval on the $16.2bn Scarborough gas development project. A piece of news that had left plenty of the country’s environmentalists distraught.

Tom Ridsdill-Smith, the top climate executive at Woodside, however, countered the claims that the project is environmentally harmful and made the argument that it will ultimately serve to lower global pollution levels.

“The net result of this is helping the world reduce emissions,” Ridsdill-Smith told The Australian Financial Review. “The climate challenge in Asia is about displacing coal, and that can’t be done by renewables and nuclear alone, or by gas alone.”

He added: “You actually need to throw all of those technologies and options at it.”

Despite the claims that the project would only emit low carbon gasses as resultant emissions, there are plenty who disagree – such as the Conservation Council of Western Australia, which claimed that the project represents some of the most polluting and harmful fossil fuel development in the country.

“I did a bit of a jig out of the chamber the other day when minister [Keith] Pitt came up and confirmed to me that had taken place and Richard [Goyder, chairman of Woodside,] had been in contact,” said Australian PM Scott Morrison.