Australia: Natural Gas Industry Welcomes Climate Change Committee

The natural gas industry looks forward to working directly with the Climate Change Committee and as a member of its business roundtable to establish a policy response to climate change that is fair, national, environmentally effective, and able to deliver abatement at least cost.

Chief Executive of the Australian Petroleum Production & Exploration Association (APPEA), Ms Belinda Robinson, said: “Australia’s natural gas reserves have the unique potential – in both the short-term and the long-term – to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions. “This could occur both domestically via greater use of gas (particularly for electricity generation) and throughout the Asia-Pacific region via increased liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports.”

Ms Robinson said a key part of the work of the Climate Change Committee announced today by the Prime Minister should include a focus on the opportunity for Australia to generate significant additional national economic, environmental and social benefits from its substantial natural gas reserves by:

– establishing a long-term price signal across the whole economy;

– recognising the role that Australia’s domestic gas industry can play in assisting Australia move to a significantly less carbon intensive future and Australia’s gas exports can play in assisting the world move to a significantly less carbon intensive future; and

– recognising cleaner global contributor exports (including the LNG industry) by ensuring they face no additional costs in the absence of a carbon price being imposed on higher emitting energy sources in customer countries and competitors.

Ms Robinson said: “Using more natural gas will be a key feature of any credible policy to reduce Australian and global greenhouse gas emissions. As Australia’s climate change policy evolves, the gas industry will apply a common sense test and assess whether any approach will result in the expansion of cleaner energy sources such as natural gas and LNG.”

KEY FACTS:

– electricity generated using natural gas emits 50-70 per cent fewer greenhouse gases than conventional coal fired power stations;

– by 2030 the world will need 40 per cent more energy and the energy needs of China and India will account for half the growth in world energy needs;

– 78 per cent of China’s electricity and 69 per cent of India’s electricity is generated from coal;

– when natural gas is used in place of coal to generate electricity in customer countries, 4.5 to 9 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions can be avoided for every tonne produced to export LNG.

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Source: APPEA, September 30, 2010;