The silencing of environmental scientists, as revealed in a study late last year, is profoundly damaging to our democracy, wastes taxpayers’ money, takes a huge personal toll, allows fake news to proliferate and short-changes the public. Elizabeth Minter reports.
Latest Energy & Environment Stories
Zero Attribution: Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology keeps silent on climate science
Meteorological services around the world have embraced climate attribution science, which ascertains the effect of climate change on extreme weather events. Not so Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology, which is remarkably coy about its work in this field. Sandi Keane and Tasha May report.
Fracking Madness: “hottest play on the planet” or giant sinkhole for public money?
“The hottest play on the planet,” Keith Pitt calls it. Resources Minister Pitt and his government are keen to open up the Northern Territory to gas fracking but, if the NT’s Beetaloo Basin is so “hot” for investors, then why do they need public money to drill it? Even more bizarrely, the industry has made it clear that it does not want public subsidies but Pitt and Co appear determined to throw public money at the gas companies anyway. Callum Foote and Michael West report on another extraordinary case of corporate welfare, environmental destruction and the political donors and large US hedge funds who we are all subsidising.
The Pitts: Government gifts Woodside $130 million Christmas present
While most Australians were settling into holiday mode last week, the Government gifted another $130 million Christmas present to Woodside to help the oil and gas titan clean up its own mess. Callum Foote and Michael West report on the latest instalment of the Northern Endeavour debacle – a sneaky slug to taxpayers.
Greg Hunt’s climate change plan drowns public money in Port Phillip Bay
Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt ploughed ahead with a “beach nourishment” project in his electorate even though the Victorian government had decided that such short-term fixes were a case of throwing away good money. Dr Sarah Russell reports.
Val Shopping: Barnaby Joyce department paid 57 times over for #watergate rights
New documents reveal a valuation of just $1.4 million for the water rights sold by Angus Taylor’s old company to Barnaby Joyce’s department. Unfortunately, the government was guided by a later, far higher valuation for the controversial water rights. Jommy Tee’s latest investigation is further compelling evidence of the drastic need for a federal corruption commission with teeth.
Woodside leaves oil rig for taxpayers to clean up; is Exxon next in the Bass Strait?
Thanks Woodside. Taxpayers are on the hook for the $200 million-plus clean-up of an ageing oil production platform moored in the Timor Sea. Is Exxon next to shirk its oil rig clean up in the Bass Strait? Callum Foote reports.
Asleep at the Wheel: why Australia’s emissions policy debacle puts hundreds of communities at risk
Hundreds of communities across Australia are hurtling towards the coal and gas cliff as politicians obsess over Cartier watches and pandemic politics. Michael West reports on the spectre of plunging demand for fossil fuels and the savage effects it will reap on regional communities.
Another Australian miner sues another poor country, this time Barrick’s Porgera in PNG
Investor State Dispute Settlement processes in trade agreements hit the headlines when US multinational Philip Morris tried to sue Australia over its tobacco plain packaging laws. Australian mining companies are increasingly using ISDS processes and are being awarded billions based on dubious calculations of potential lost profits by unaccountable international tribunals. Patricia Ranald reports.
Anthony Albanese coy on gas as Scott Morrison locks in Australia’s fossil fuel future
Australia’s carbon-belching future is surely being sealed by the Coalition with the acquiescence of Labor. As the world turns from coal, gas is almost as toxic for the climate. Callum Foote reports on Labor’s capture by the gas lobby capture while Angus Taylor appoints Macquarie’s Shemara Wikramanayake and former Origin chief Grant King to advise on his Energy Roadmap even though they are smack-bang in the middle of a billion-dollar gas deal.
Emails show Qantas promotes climate action in public, betrays carbon commitments in private
In public, Qantas professes an absolute commitment to reducing carbon emissions. In private, it lobbies the government to weaken the global scheme for airlines to commit to offsetting their emissions. Elizabeth Minter reports.
BHP risks Indigenous heritage, workers and the environment
Rio Tinto is not the only mining giant disregarding public interest. BHP is putting cultural heritage and potentially the lives of workers at risk, and exposing the environment to devastation. All aided by the law and the Coalition government, writes David Noonan and Dr Jim Green.
Fossil fuel gaslighting: accept climate change but undermine action
Lobbyists for the fossil fuel industry have enjoyed a meteoric rise in influence both locally and globally over the past few decades, writes Ian Dunlop.
Gas Gush: the toadies of mainstream media trot out government’s fossil fuel fracking campaign
The fossil fuel giants got a big leg-up today as News Corp, Nine Entertainment, ABC News and Guardian Australia faithfully splashed the latest government gas plans on their front pages.
Time for Rio to right its wrongs and set up HQ in Australia again
The destruction of the sacred Juukan Gorge caves highlighted the folly of Rio Tinto’s decision-making in moving its headquarters to the UK, a world away from local knowledge and in breach of the original merger conditions. It’s time Rio ended the remote-control management and returned its team to the country that provides the bulk of its profits, writes Shane West.
Desperate Dalrymple: Brookfield dumps coal port on mums and dads in ASX float as Queensland moots bail-out
The giant coal port Dalrymple Bay is up for sale. The financial engineering wizards from Brookfield want out. Brookfield’s debt is humungous, and green hydrogen is looming as a mortal threat to coking coal. They can’t offload it to professional investors, so they are now targeting the mums and dads for a float on the ASX,
Gas Lies: Santos tries to ram through coal seam gas at Narrabri with fake claims
Santos has lodged a big report based on false assumptions to push its Narrabri CSG project through regulators. Its independent expert is not independent, nor expert. Michael West investigates.
Barnaby Joyce signed off $80m for Angus Taylor’s old company after zero was paid for same sort of water nearby
Same water, same valuer, $80m and nought. The same type of water licences for irrigation properties near those for which the Coalition government paid $80 million in 2017 were valued at zero between 2008 and 2010, writes investigative reporter Kerry Brewster
Barnaby’s Boondoggle: documents reveal $80m price for ‘Watergate’ licences was nearly twice valuation
The Coalition paid the tax haven-linked Eastern Australia Agriculture nearly double what independent valuers recommended for water licences. Most of the record $80 million from the sale ended up with a Cayman Islands company established by Energy Minister Angus Taylor. Investigative journalist Kerry Brewster has this exclusive report.
Snow Job: why the cover-up over Snowy Hydro 2.0?
The National Parks Association of NSW and ex-Energy Australia chair Ted Woodley are considering a legal challenge to the $10 billion Snowy 2.0, which they say will push back the transition to renewable energy and destroy thousands of hectares of national park, in light of the fact that the whole project hinges on a 30-year-old report. which is being kept secret writes Callum Foote.
Bureau of Meteorology: under pressure to toe the Coalition line on climate change?
While the UK’s Met Office is out there educating the public, BoM is remarkably coy about any public discussion of climate change. Questions have also been asked whether its senior leadership is too close to the gas industry. Sandi Keane investigates.
Pandemic ‘a smokescreen’ to ram through controversial mining projects like Santos gas in Narrabri
The independent hearings into one of the most controversial projects in NSW history, Santos’ coal seam gas dream for Narrabri, are wrapping up. Meanwhile, new NSW guidelines to fast-track developments look set to turn into a nightmare for community groups, writes Callum Foote.
A Savage Call: energy tsar calls time on Australia’s gas cartel
The Government and its Covid Commission are pushing a $6 billion gas pipeline while new energy regulator, Clare Savage, calls into question the future of the gas networks. Meanwhile Australians still pay more for gas than customers overseas pay for Australian gas. Michael West reports on the momentous upheaval in energy.
Environment Minister approves Whitehaven’s tenth coal mine
The state’s 52nd coal mine, and the first since Covid, has been approved by the Minister for the Environment in NSW amid plunging coal prices and huge local opposition. The fate of Whitehaven’s Vickery mine, and its impact on farmers around Narrabri, now lies in the hands of the NSW’s independent planning commissioners
Revisiting failed climate strategy of CCS renders investors speechless
Carbon capture and storage, the prohibitively expensive climate mitigation strategy, is back on the Coalition’s agenda. Yet the facts speak for themselves. Of Shell’s total emissions of 656 million tonnes a year, its two CCS plants remove just 5 million tonnes a year from the atmosphere; the few plants in the world only exist because of huge government subsidies; while European oil companies use CCS primarily as a “feel-good” marketing message. Tim Buckley reports.
Assault on environment by gas fracking multinationals escalates
Multinational corporations have captured the national polity and continue to push last-century energy solutions on Australia, in defiance of sound policy and due process. The US fracking industry has collapsed. Yet the Covid Commission forges ahead with coal seam gas plans for Santos at Narrabri. Callum Foote reports.
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