Premier Roger Cook says his government will keep a watchful eye on importers of Western Australia’s gas to ensure they are not stalling the transition to green energy sources and have the “same sense of urgency” to mitigate climate change effects as his government.
Cook backs the role of gas as both a locally stable electricity source and tool to decarbonise coal-reliant Asian economies. However, climate groups are deriding that stance, particularly as the state’s forests die off after a punishingly hot and dry six months.
WA Premier Roger Cook.Credit: Trevor Collens
Speaking to WAtoday last week as Perth recorded its fifth May day above 28C, Cook said the weather was ridiculous and wrong, and described the forest die-off as “climate change writ large”.
He said his government still supported gas as a transition fuel but softened some of his past staunch rhetoric, revealing his government was taking a keen interest in international customers to ensure they continued decarbonising beyond fossil fuels.
This was key to ensuring investment continued in new green energy industries that Cook’s government was trying to establish in WA, like hydrogen and ammonia – a topic he said he discussed “explicitly” with Japanese stakeholders during his visit last October.
“It is incumbent on us to make sure [Japan] can get the gas they need to be a part of that transition,” he said.
“But conversations we’re having inside government are: ‘Okay, but how do we make sure that we hold them to account that they’re not just stalling their part of the energy transition?’”
The government is spending hundreds of millions to become a renewable energy powerhouse by opening industrial land for green hydrogen and ammonia businesses across WA.
Future international customers of WA hydrogen and ammonia are the same ones currently devouring the state’s gas, given gas can reduce emissions by about half compared to coal.
Cook said there was no shortage of motivation for countries to decarbonise, but he wanted “line of sight” of what that looked like.
He said all countries were under equal pressure to transition to green energy.
“We’ll need to continue that work in partnership to make sure that we’re satisfied that they are moving with the same sense of urgency that we have, and therefore the role that gas plays is actually about retiring coal – not just prolonging gas,” he said.
“At the end of the day, we’re not trying to save Western Australia, we’re not even trying to save Australia, we’re trying to save the planet.”
Cook said ammonia, a transportable version of hydrogen, was the key product that would retire gas.
“In the early days, ammonia is going to be the key but as I said, the technology around this stuff is changing all the time,” he said.
“We could have this conversation the same time next year and it might be completely different.”
Cook made the comments ahead of a big week for the WA resources sector where he will be giving keynotes at both the AFR Mining Summit on Wednesday and the Australian Energy Producers conference on Thursday.
In her keynote address at the energy conference on Tuesday, Australian Energy Producers chair and Woodside chief executive Meg O’Neill praised the Cook government’s approach to gas, repeating comments he made at the WA energy summit last year.
“Reflecting on the role of gas as a transition fuel he said, ‘the benefits of WA helping other high-emission countries to decarbonise far outstrips the benefits of decarbonising our own economy’,” she said.
“The premier’s words show a clear-eyed understanding of the complex, global nature, of the climate challenge and they reflect the pragmatic support that we’ll need to fulfil the title of today’s conference and deliver the new energy economy.”
O’Neill said gas would play a huge role in the energy transition and would continue to be needed to power economies like Australia even as the nation reached net-zero emissions by its 2050 target.
“Gas can provide back-up support for electricity grids powered by renewables and batteries,” she said.
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