Anthony Albanese quizzed on Woodside’s North West Shelf project during New York climate event

The Prime Minister has defended his Government’s recent decision to extend Woodside’s North West Shelf gas project while facing extensive questioning during a climate event in New York.

Appearing at the New York Times’ Climate Forward conference ahead of his address to the United Nations General Assembly, Anthony Albanese began by outlining Labor’s recently announced 2035 emission reduction targets.

“The climate change authority’s job is to give us a recommendation. They recommended 62 to 70% to us. We adopted that. Our task was to pick a target that’s as ambitious as possible, but also which is achievable,” he told the NYT conference.

The conference moderator then quizzed Mr Albanese on why his government had also this month granted final approval to extend Australia’s oldest LNG project despite warnings from environmental activists that it was a “carbon bomb”.

“Environmental approvals were done, and indeed as part of the condition that we put on the approval of North West Shelf is that they have to be at net zero by 2050 themselves,” Mr Albanese said in response.

“One of the things that they are doing is through carbon capture and storage, for example, is one of the ways that they are reducing their carbon footprint.”

This month the Albanese government confirmed Woodside’s North West Shelf project had been given final approval to keep operating until 2070 but with strict additional conditions aimed at protecting nearby ancient Indigenous rock art.

The 48 conditions followed those imposed by the WA Government and include continuous monitoring of emissions and reductions of some gases by as much as 60 per cent below current levels.

During Wednesday’s conference Mr Albanese also argued that his Government’s task was to maintain community support while transitioning Australia towards renewable energy sources.

“If people go and they try to turn the light on and the lights don’t go on, you lose support”, Mr Albanese said.

“The North West Shelf is in Western Australia. We’re a big country, small population. The last coal fired power station in Western Australia, is at Collie — it will close in 2027.”

“We have major renewables projects, including transition and batteries, fits in with the transmission lines there, but you need gas to provide some firming capacity in order to have the confidence for the investment to occur in renewables.”

The Australian leader also echoed comments from other speakers during the NYT event by suggesting the Trump administration’s position on climate could isolate the United States diplomatically.

“The action on climate change is the entry fee to credibility and to engagement,” he said in response to a question about America’s standing in the Pacific region.

“For countries like Tuvalu, Kiribati, this isn’t some academic argument - this is a matter of an existential threat to their existence,” the Prime Minister warned.