THE CLIMATE WRECKERS INDEX

Combined, the companies on the Climate Wreckers Index are pursuing:

• New or expanded oil and gas fields with combined expected production of 114,350 million barrels of oil equivalent
  • The estimated carbon dioxide emissions from combustion of this much oil and gas is more than 43,450 million tonnes, equal to 75 times Australia’s annual emissions
• New or expanded coal mines with combined reserves of 19,649 million tonnes
  • The estimated carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2-e) from combustion of this much coal is 37,723 million tonnes per year, equivalent to 65 times Australia’s annual emissions
• New coal plants with combined capacity of 120.7 GW
  • Based on GEM emissions data, the total emissions from these coal plants is estimated to be 18,429 million tonnes of CO2-e, equal to 31.7 times Australia’s annual emissions
• New gas plants with combined capacity of 138.7 GW
  • Assuming that of these plants will be modern combined cycle plants, the total emissions is estimated to be 10,178 million tonnes of CO2-e, equal to 17.5 times Australia’s annual emissions

Woodside is pursuing massive new oil and gas projects consistent with the failure of the Paris Agreement, including the monstrous Scarborough gas field off the coast of Western Australia (WA), and the associated Pluto Train 2 liquified natural gas (LNG) processing plant. The proposed Scarborough-Pluto project could result in the emissions equivalent of 15 coal-fired power stations running for 30 years, threaten to accelerate degradation of the Murujuga rock art (proposed for World Heritage listing) due to industrial emissions, and would also cause significant impacts to the local marine environment. Independent analysis has concluded the Scarborough-Pluto combined project “…represents a bet against the world implementing the Paris Agreement”.

One of the many pieces of rock art at Murujuga. Image courtesy of CCWA.

In late 2021, the company also agreed to take over BHP’s entire petroleum business, which would roughly double Woodside’s oil and gas production capacity and make it a global top ten independent oil and gas company. This takeover will be voted on at the company’s 2022 annual general meeting (AGM), and, if it goes ahead, this means Woodside could be spending around $26 billion on expansionary oil and gas projects by 2030 that are incompatible with the Paris climate goals.

Despite the urgent need for fossil fuel production to begin declining in line with global climate goals, Woodside plans to significantly increase the combined total of Woodside and BHP’s oil and gas production over the next five years. Beyond clearly contravening the IEA’s key conclusion that there is no room for new oil and gas production projects in the pathway to net zero emissions by 2050, a number of independent analyses of new oil and gas production projects being pursued by Woodside reveals how significantly out of line they are with global climate goals. Carbon tracker, for example, has found that Woodside’s proposed Pluto Train 2 facility is not even financially competitive in a catastrophic 2.7°C global warming scenario, let alone in a world where we achieve the 1.5°C goal of the Paris Agreement.

The options with the largest exposures to Woodside were: Macquarie Superannuation Plan (1.25% of total listed equities), BT Financial Group Panorama (1.08%), and LUCRF MySuper Balanced (1.06%).

Santos is pursuing massive new oil and gas projects consistent with the failure of the Paris Agreement, including the dangerous and destructive Narrabri gas project in the Pilliga Forest, New South Wales (NSW). Santos has recently undergone a merger with Oil Search to make the combined business one of the 20 largest companies on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX). This new fossil fuel giant has one main aim: produce more oil and gas. In fact, Santos is pursuing major new projects that would increase its production by at least 17% from 2020 to 2030, despite the urgent need for fossil fuel production to begin declining in line with global climate goals.

Santos plans to drill 850 gas wells throughout the Pilliga Forest and surrounding farmland near Narrabri, NSW. The company is still desperately pursuing this toxic project, despite years of opposition from local Gomeroi Traditional Owners and farmers, as well as former Chief Scientist Penny Sackett, who has confirmed the project is inconsistent with the Paris Agreement and net zero by 2050. Santos has even gone so far as to submit an application to the National Native Title Tribunal, in an attempt to extinguish Gomeroi Traditional Owner native title rights over the Pilliga. The Narrabri project makes it clear that Santos will stop at nothing in the pursuit of climate wrecking gas, including trashing Indigenous cultural heritage.

Community members voicing opposition to the Narrabri gas project in NSW, 2014.
Image courtesy of the Lock the Gate Alliance

Santos is also pushing ahead with its Barossa gas project, a massive new proposed gas field 300km North of Darwin, Northern Territory (NT). If the project goes ahead, Santos will transport gas from the Barossa field to an existing LNG processing facility in Darwin. The extremely high carbon dioxide (CO2) content of Barossa gas is three times greater than the Darwin LNG plant can handle, leading energy experts to state that the Barossa to Darwin LNG project looks like it’s shaping up to become “…a CO2 emissions factory with an LNG by-product.” Traditional Owners are suing Barossa’s financiers to try to stop the project, as “some Tiwi Islander and Larrakia elders fear the project will have detrimental impacts on their sea country and marine life.”

The options with the largest exposures to Santos were: TWU Balanced MySuper (1.45% of total listed equities), Active Super Accelerator (1.15%), and Hostplus Accumulation Balanced (1.00%).

Whitehaven Coal is the biggest undiversified coal mining company on the Australian share market. Whitehaven’s plans to massively expand the coal industry are completely at odds with the Paris Agreement goal of limiting global warming to 1.5ºC. To justify its business plans, Whitehaven refers to coal demand scenarios consistent with a catastrophic 3ºC of global warming.

Whitehaven is planning to spend around $2 billion on three new coal mines and expansions: Vickery, Narrabri Stage 3 and Winchester South. These mines have marketable coal reserves of almost 500 million tonnes. When emissions from digging up and burning the coal are added, over their lifetimes these three mines would unleash almost 1.1 billion tonnes of carbon emissions, the equivalent of almost twice Australia’s annual emissions.

Whitehaven’s monstrous Maules Creek coal mine has destroyed swathes of the Leard State Forest, NSW.
Image courtesy of the Lock the Gate Alliance

Whitehaven’s existing Maules Creek coal mine is one of Australia’s most controversial mining projects and was strongly opposed by local farmers and Gomeroi traditional owners. Despite a massive community campaign that included a two year blockade, Whitehaven bulldozed hundreds of hectares of critically endangered forest that provide important habitat for rare and endangered species like the Superb Parrot, Regent Honeyeater and Squirrel Glider.

Lock the Gate Alliance has compiled a comprehensive list of Whitehaven’s law-breaking over the last 10 years. This compilation shows the company and its subsidiaries have been found guilty or investigated 35 times and incurred almost $1.5 million in total penalties.

Of the options profiled, Hostplus Accumulation Balanced (0.15% of listed equities), Commonwealth Super Corp PSS Default (0.12%), and Russell Investments Goal Tracker (0.12%) had the highest exposures. 13 options had no exposure at all to Whitehaven Coal.

New Hope is an Australian-based undiversified coal mining company deriving more than 95% of revenue from the sale of thermal coal. Despite there being no room for new or expanded coal mines if we’re to achieve the climate goals of the Paris Agreement or net zero emissions by 2050, New Hope is pursuing a major expansion of its New Acland coal mine on some of Queensland’s best farming land.

New Hope plans to spend around $900 million on its New Acland Stage 3 coal expansion, one of the most contested coal mining projects in Australian history. New Hope has determined there’s a further 200 million tonnes of coal reserves at New Acland, and Stage 3 would increase the mine’s production capacity to 7.5 million tonnes per year and extend its production life by 12 years.

The New Acland coal mine in the Darling Downs, Qld.
Image courtesy of the Lock the Gate Alliance

Aside from the physical destruction of this prime farming land, there is deep community concern about the impact of the mine on local groundwater aquifers. According to the Oakey Coal Action Alliance, around 20,000 hectares of cropping land surrounding the mine is at risk of permanent groundwater impacts. Despite several rounds of water modelling revisions, expert scientists remained unconvinced by New Hope’s final water management plans.

New Hope also operates the Bengalla coal mine, which is licensed to extract up to 15 million tonnes of coal per year until 2039.

The options with the largest exposures to New Hope were: IOOF Balanced (0.10% of total listed equities), ACSRF Balanced (0.06%), and Colonial First State FirstChoice Wholesale Growth (0.05%). 14 options had no exposure at all to New Hope.

Adani really needs no introduction. The company is responsible for the most controversial coal mine in Australia’s history: Carmichael.

Despite immense community resistance helping to significantly reduce the scale of the first phase of the Carmichael mine, Adani still plans to dig the biggest coal mine in Australia. If it gets its way, Adani would extract up to 60 million tonnes of coal a year for 90 years, and create 4.6 billion tonnes of carbon pollution. 

Adani Group’s other fossil fuel expansion plans include:

• Doubling its coal-fired power capacity by 12 gigawatts (GW) to 24 GW, giving it more coal power capacity than all of Australia.
• Owning, developing or operating 132 million tonnes per annum (mtpa) of new thermal coal mining capacity, including the massive 60 mtpa Carmichael project in Australia, which would pave the way for more massive coal mines in the untapped Galilee Basin.
• New coal and LNG terminals at Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone’s ports.
• An obscure and highly polluting facility that would convert coal, including imported thermal coal, into plastics.
• 1,500 new retail fuel stations and 1,500 new compressed natural gas (CNG) stations.

Eight of the super fund options profiled had investment exposure to Adani Group companies (excluding Adani Green).

Coal from Adani’s ‘North Queensland Export Terminal (NQXT)’ coal port contaminating Caley Valley Wetlands after Cyclone Debbie, April 2017. Image credit: Dean Sewell / Oculi

Adaro Energy Indonesia (Adaro) is a pure play coal mining company with plans to expand. Adaro produced 54 million tonnes of coal in 2020 alone, and has coal reserves of 1.1 billion tonnes. Burning all of these reserves would release 2.2 billion tonnes of CO2-e, almost the equivalent of India’s total annual emissions. 

Adaro has stated its plan to ramp up coal production through exploration for new coal reserves, expanding existing projects, and acquiring new mines. To justify its business plans, Adaro presents global coal demand forecasts that are even higher than the International Energy Agency’s 2.70C-aligned STEPS scenario.

Six of the super fund options profiled had investment exposure to Adaro.

Image: An aerial view of the Adaro coal mine in South Kalimantan, Indonesia. Adaro has 31,379 hectares of mining concession in South Kalimantan. Credit: JATAM – Indonesia Mining Advocacy Network

TEPCO, Chubu and their joint venture JERA are betting against the climate goals of the Paris Agreement and undermining their own net zero emissions commitments by expanding the liquefied natural gas (LNG) and coal power sectors.

JERA is responsible for a whopping 169 MtCO2-e annually, or 15% of Japan’s annual emissions (2020). The company is currently constructing three additional coal-fired power plants – two in Japan and one in Indonesia.

JERA is also pursuing significant involvement in the LNG sector, including gas fields, LNG terminals and LNG to power projects in countries such as Australia, Bangladesh, and Vietnam. This includes a stake in the new Barossa gas field, a controversial project in northern Australia opposed by First Nations communities, which has been labelled ‘both a major financial risk and a serious climate risk’. In addition, a recent court proceeding filed in Korea is raising doubts on the project’s ability to secure finance.

The options with the highest combined exposure to TEPCO and Chubu were AMP MySuper 1970s (0.043%), LGIAsuper MySuper (0.028%) and ACSRF Balanced (0.025%).

Mitsubishi Corp turned up in our research as expanding fossil fuels in three separate areas: gas power plants, coal production, and oil and gas production.

Mitsubishi is expanding its gas business by building gas fields, LNG terminals and LNG to power projects, contrary to the International Energy Agency (IEA)’s ‘Net Zero by 2050’ scenario (NZ2050), which makes clear that achieving net-zero emissions by 2050 means no new fossil fuel supply and an extremely limited and narrowing role for fossil fuels in electricity generation. 

Meanwhile, Mitsubishi’s coal mining subsidiary is expanding its metallurgical coal mining operations in Australia.

The options with the highest exposure to Mitsubishi Corp companies* were AustralianSuper Balanced (0.07%), HESTA Balance Growth (0.07%) and ACSRF Balanced (0.06%).

Protestors calling on Mitsubishi to get out of the Vung Ang 2 coal power station in Vietnam.

*Excluding non-fossil fuel-related subsidiaries (see methodology below)

General Electric (GE) has historically been heavily involved in coal power generation, both in the United States and also as a developer of coal power plants internationally. While the company announced it is exiting new coal power builds, it is planning major expansions in the LNG and gas power sectors.

Market Forces’ research has found GE is involved in new LNG to power plants in Vietnam and Bangladesh with combined capacity of 24.6 GW.

The options with the highest exposure to GE  were CSC PSS Default (0.29%), MLC MySuper Growth (0.21%), and CareSuper Balanced (0.18%).