Speaker 1: I got fascinated by the Woodside story because of the
Speaker 1: emphasis really that the climate movement decided to put on Woodside.
Speaker 2: Marion Wilkinson has been reporting on climate and energy policy
Speaker 2: for decades and has recently turned her attention to Australia's
Speaker 2: fossil fuel giant Woodside. Last week, the government approved Woodside's
Speaker 2: plans to keep its Northwest Shelf project producing gas out
Speaker 2: to twenty seventy We've.
Speaker 1: Always said with Australia's fossil fuel exports, whether they're coal
Speaker 1: or liquid natural gas LNG, that that's the responsibility of
Speaker 1: our customers under the Paris Agreement, and in fact I
Speaker 1: heard Murray wat just talking on your podcast about that.
Speaker 3: I guess the way the world has approached dealing with
Speaker 3: climate change and greenhouse emissions, particularly through the Paris Agreement,
Speaker 3: is to say that every country who's a signatory to
Speaker 3: the agreement needs to reduce the emissions that it emits
Speaker 3: in their own country.
Speaker 1: But things are different now. The climate emergency is such
Speaker 1: that we actually need to seriously examine what we're doing
Speaker 1: about our customers emissions when we send out all these
Speaker 1: fossil fuels to the rest of the world. That's why
Speaker 1: I was interested in the Woodside story.
Speaker 2: I'm Ruby Jones and you're listening to seven AM today
Speaker 2: walk the award winning journalist and author of the quarterly
Speaker 2: essay Woodside Versus the Planet, Marion Wilkinson on how one
Speaker 2: company captured the country and convinced us that GUS is
Speaker 2: necessary as the world transitions away from fossil fuels. It's Tuesday,
Speaker 2: September sixteenth, Marian. This is a pivotal moment for the
Speaker 2: energy giant Woodside, and I want to start by talking
Speaker 2: about the company's recent annual general meeting. You were there,
Speaker 2: so what happened?
Speaker 1: Well, it was it was a bit of surprise because
Speaker 1: I did know that the annual general meetings of Woodside
Speaker 1: had been quite fraud affairs for the last few years.
Speaker 1: The level of security really surprised me. Around the Crown
Speaker 1: Casino ballroom area in Perth, which is where it was
Speaker 1: being held, there was security guards absolutely everywhere. It was
Speaker 1: like going to the airport, you know, bags checked the
Speaker 1: whole box and dice. Nevertheless, the climate activists came in
Speaker 1: there no doubt, on proxies from other shareholders, blowing very
Speaker 1: loud whistles which they later said was blowing the whistle
Speaker 1: on Meg O'Neil, the climate criminal.
Speaker 4: It's very childish to stand up and shout, But having
Speaker 4: a few people stand up, hackle and blow whistles doesn't
Speaker 4: change our resolve, It doesn't change our beliefs.
Speaker 1: But what I was particularly interested in was whether, in
Speaker 1: a broader sense, the shareholders were still questioning the leadership
Speaker 1: of Woodside on their climate plan. And I think some
Speaker 1: of the heat has gone out of the shareholder concern
Speaker 1: about fossil fuel businesses. And I think there's a feeling,
Speaker 1: certainly in financial circles that the Trump administration has given
Speaker 1: the industry a big break, But I don't think that
Speaker 1: actually changes the long term outlook for companies like Woodside.
Speaker 1: I think they are still going to be under enormous
Speaker 1: pressure because at the end of the day, you cannot
Speaker 1: get around the science of climate change.
Speaker 2: You mentioned Meg O'Neill, so she's been the CEO of
Speaker 2: Woodside for the past four years. During that time, the
Speaker 2: company got approval to expand its gas production out to
Speaker 2: twenty seventy So it seems like mag O'Neill is doing
Speaker 2: quite a good job of what she's being paid to do.
Speaker 1: Would you say, I think she's doing a very good
Speaker 1: job at the moment for what the board wants her
Speaker 1: to do. If we look at what's happened in the
Speaker 1: last four years, She's managed to ram through the Scarborough Project.
Speaker 1: It's meant expanding their Pluto gas processing plant on the
Speaker 1: Barrett Peninsula. She's got both the WA government and the
Speaker 1: federal government on side with the extension of the big
Speaker 1: gas plant up there, the Northwest Shelf plant, and she
Speaker 1: is now plowing on with trying to feed gas into
Speaker 1: that Northwest Shelf plant from an expansion with some new
Speaker 1: gas fields in what's called the Brows Basin up there.
Speaker 1: So I think you'd have to say in the short
Speaker 1: term she's been very successful.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Can you tell me a.
Speaker 2: Little bit more about her rise to that job or
Speaker 2: where did she come from? How did she become the CEO.
Speaker 1: Well, she's basically been an ex On person all her life.
Speaker 1: But the part of her career that really interested me
Speaker 1: was that she went to headquarters around the time of
Speaker 1: the Paris Agreement, which was twenty fifteen twenty sixteen, to
Speaker 1: work for the eggs On Chief Executive. And I think
Speaker 1: she would have been there right at the time of
Speaker 1: one of the biggest original shareholder revolts internally against Eggson
Speaker 1: by climate activists.
Speaker 6: A climate activist group has targeted Exon Mobile with a
Speaker 6: shareholder resolution calling for deeper cuts in its carbon emissions.
Speaker 6: Dutch group followed this has urged the US energy giant
Speaker 6: to publish targets for a use in greenhouse gas emissions
Speaker 6: and the burning of fossil fuels sold to customers.
Speaker 1: So she really knows the mo of climate activism and
Speaker 1: climate shareholder activism.
Speaker 2: And you got an interview with her recently. How hard
Speaker 2: was it to secure that and how did it go?
Speaker 1: Look, she was quite forthcoming in the end, and I
Speaker 1: think she was very keen to put the line of
Speaker 1: the company. She is absolutely determined, I think, to press
Speaker 1: the case that the Wa Labor government and the federal
Speaker 1: Albanesi government are pressing that what Woodside is doing by
Speaker 1: exporting LNG is helping to decarbonize our Asian neighbors.
Speaker 4: And we should not be regressing. We should instead be
Speaker 4: extending access to electricity to the hundreds of millions of
Speaker 4: people in the developing world who still live without it.
Speaker 4: To do that, we need new supplies of affordable and
Speaker 4: reliable energy, but we also need to decarbonize.
Speaker 1: It's a claim that's been running for well over a
Speaker 1: decade since the Paris Agreement was struck, but it is
Speaker 1: now a claim that a lot of countries and companies
Speaker 1: are hanging their hats on.
Speaker 2: And so does it hold up.
Speaker 1: I think it's getting really questionable now. On the one hand,
Speaker 1: we're seeing this rise in renewables, and I think that
Speaker 1: the instinct of the company's like wood Side, will be
Speaker 1: to try their hardest to hold onto their market share
Speaker 1: and to hold on to their customers, and that means
Speaker 1: that they're going to be really pressuring governments like the
Speaker 1: Australian government to stand by this thesis that they're helping
Speaker 1: decarbonize the world, when really we want to look at
Speaker 1: whether that amount of leg going into the market at
Speaker 1: the same time of the really rapid rise and renewables
Speaker 1: that actually the grab the market share by the gas
Speaker 1: companies will hinder the transition rather than help it.
Speaker 4: Coming up.
Speaker 2: What the government gets out of its friendship with Woodside.
Speaker 4: The Australian government has stated it's support for the gas
Speaker 4: industry and it has provided strong reassurances that Australia is
Speaker 4: not quietly quitting its LNG industry. Woodside is certainly not
Speaker 4: quietly quitting. We are deliberately delivering.
Speaker 2: So Marian, I want to drill down a bit more
Speaker 2: on the relationship between Woodside and both the federal government
Speaker 2: and Wa state government, because it seems like the government's
Speaker 2: rhetoric on gas and the approvals that they're granting they
Speaker 2: are all in line with Woodsides ambitions as a company.
Speaker 2: So what did those governments get out of this relationship.
Speaker 1: I think the success of Woodside is inherently baked into
Speaker 1: the psyche of Australia's main political parties. I think it
Speaker 1: was an unbelievably ambitious, important project right at the beginning
Speaker 1: when it started in the nineteen eighties. I mean it
Speaker 1: was Australia's first LNG plant. It opened the door for
Speaker 1: the other big LNG players to come to Australia. Certainly
Speaker 1: in its original thinking, the domestic gas it supplied for
Speaker 1: Wa was very important to that state, both the industry
Speaker 1: and for the public. So on a simple level, there
Speaker 1: is a bit of tax and export income. Critically for
Speaker 1: both governments. There's jobs and that is a huge issue
Speaker 1: in Wa. That means seats electoral seats. That means political
Speaker 1: support in the Labor Party in the unions. That is
Speaker 1: a really big deal. It's backed by Kerry Stokes, who's
Speaker 1: the most important media proprietor in WA. So on so
Speaker 1: many different levels, both the state and federal governments, whether
Speaker 1: they're Liberal or Labor, they are intimately tied up with
Speaker 1: the future of Woodside. But neither the company nor the
Speaker 1: governments want to look ahead to what is actually happening
Speaker 1: in the energy transition. So we hear about the vital
Speaker 1: critical minerals industry all the time. These are the minerals
Speaker 1: that are going to help build the energy transition. And
Speaker 1: there's been a sleight of hand that somehow these critical
Speaker 1: minerals projects are going to be fueled by green energy.
Speaker 1: But if you spend any time in Western Australia, people
Speaker 1: talk largely about gas fueling that industry. And this is
Speaker 1: why Western Australia's emissions should be allowed to go up,
Speaker 1: so they can help with the critical minerals industry and
Speaker 1: so they can help decarbonize the world. Even though that
Speaker 1: state's emissions are going up. To me both the government
Speaker 1: and the gas companies in WA, they're a million miles
Speaker 1: away from what the climate movement is thinking, and that
Speaker 1: gap I think is untenable.
Speaker 2: Yeah, do you think that is a problem for the
Speaker 2: federal government because it seems like staking its reputation on
Speaker 2: being a gas export and also investing in things like
Speaker 2: critical minerals is one thing. But is that enough of
Speaker 2: a benefit for the federal government to justify continuing to
Speaker 2: support woodside in the way that it does.
Speaker 1: I think that's the really critical question, And I think
Speaker 1: the problem is we're trying to answer that question without
Speaker 1: realistic data about what is going on in the decarbonization
Speaker 1: of Asia. So I keep hearing this mantra from the
Speaker 1: companies and from the governments that we're decarbonizing Asia, therefore
Speaker 1: we're helping decarbonize the world. Once you start picking this apart,
Speaker 1: the arguments become a lot more complicated if you look
Speaker 1: at a country like Japan. Japan is and has been
Speaker 1: since more or less the time of the Paris Agreement,
Speaker 1: building its own gas enpire to re export gas around
Speaker 1: the world and to trade gas around the world. So
Speaker 1: I think a lot of Australians believe we're exporting to
Speaker 1: Japan so they can keep the lights on in Tokyo.
Speaker 1: And keep Japanese people warm. But actually Japan is also
Speaker 1: becoming a major global gas trader. And also if we're saying, well,
Speaker 1: we're going to let our customers deal with the emissions
Speaker 1: from burning our gas, Japan might have a net zero
Speaker 1: by twenty fifty target, But does Cambodia, does the Philippines,
Speaker 1: does Vietnam? So the minute you start opening up this question,
Speaker 1: it becomes quite messy and quite complicated. And I guess,
Speaker 1: if this is going to be the rationale, let's get
Speaker 1: some real information on it that is not just the
Speaker 1: information put out by the gas companies.
Speaker 5: And so, given the international energy market, the changes you're
Speaker 5: describing there, and the growing climate protest movement here in
Speaker 5: Australia that is becoming more focused on Woodside, how secure
Speaker 5: do you think the company's future is.
Speaker 1: I think in the short term, mego'neil's future is very secure,
Speaker 1: and I think the board is backing her. I think
Speaker 1: while the climate movement's actions against Woodside have pretty much
Speaker 1: been unsuccessful in actually stopping the projects to date, I
Speaker 1: think a far bigger question is the global pressures that
Speaker 1: will be on Australia. One from the speed of the
Speaker 1: energy transition but I think probably more importantly it's going
Speaker 1: to be the pressure of the pact of climate change
Speaker 1: on Australia itself. From the current global emissions, we are
Speaker 1: now looking at serious problems for the Great Barrier Reef
Speaker 1: survival in our lifetime. And I think in the shorter
Speaker 1: term there is a serious campaign that will happen around
Speaker 1: the overhaul of Australia's environmental laws. I think a lot
Speaker 1: of people in the climate movement are saying there has
Speaker 1: to be a climate trigger in those laws, and I
Speaker 1: think the reason they have to be on the table
Speaker 1: is that Australians know that it's not just the emissions
Speaker 1: at home that impact their lives with climate change. They
Speaker 1: know what is impacting their life is the global emissions.
Speaker 1: You can't just deal with your emissions at home and
Speaker 1: say that you're a responsible climate actor if at the
Speaker 1: same time you are trying to have your industries profit
Speaker 1: from fossil fuel exports without saying we're going to take
Speaker 1: on the hard yards, which is how we provide affordable
Speaker 1: renewable energy for industry. That works.
Speaker 4: Well.
Speaker 2: Marian, thank you so much for your teian. Thanks Ruby.
Speaker 2: You can read Marion Wilkinson's Quarterly Essay Woodside versus the
Speaker 2: Planet at Quarterlyessay dot com dot au. Also in the
Speaker 2: news today, Prime Minister Anthony Alberzi says the closure of
Speaker 2: his electorate office in Sydney's Inner West after more than
Speaker 2: thirty years was prompted by pro Palestinian protesters who've been
Speaker 2: demonstrating outside for over a year. Says the protests have
Speaker 2: affected people attending a nearby church and disrupted the church services,
Speaker 2: and says a new site is being searched for relocation.
Speaker 2: And Arab and Islamic leaders have gathered in Qatar to
Speaker 2: discuss a response to Israel's strike on Doha last week,
Speaker 2: which killed five Hamas members and a Katari security officer
Speaker 2: and left civilians injured. Qatar's Prime minister says the attack
Speaker 2: in Doha violated both Qatar's sovereignty and international law as
Speaker 2: it struck near schools, housing and diplomatic missions. At the
Speaker 2: same time as the meeting in Doha, Israeli Prime Minister
Speaker 2: Benjamin Etna, who hosted US Secretary of State Marco Rubio
Speaker 2: in Jerusalem. I'm Ruby Jones. This is seven am.
Speaker 4: Thanks for listening.