14 November 2018
Globally over 500 companies with trillions of dollars’ worth of assets have started to disclose the risks posed by our climate change emergency. But Central Petroleum isn’t one of them. At its annual general meeting in Brisbane yesterday it was apparent that the Northern Territory’s largest onshore gas producer had given little thought to the issue.
“We haven’t modelled [them] and we don’t understand what the exact scenarios are yet” acting CEO Leon Devaney told a shareholder who asked whether the company had stress tested its assets against different global warming scenarios.
While many of its peers now recognise the very real risks of runaway climate change, and have begun disclosing them to shareholders, Central Petroleum fails to include a single mention of climate change, climate risk or the company’s own greenhouse gas emissions in this year’s annual report.
Australia’s emissions have been on the rise for the past three years straight and government data shows that liquefied natural gas (LNG) was the main driver behind a 6.8 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions increase between 2017-2018. Climate Analytics argues that the emissions growth from LNG will effectively nullify the carbon pollution avoided through Australia’s renewable energy target.
When questioned by a shareholder whether Central Petroleum had considered climate risk, it appeared this was perhaps the first time the board had given any thought to the issue.
With an increase in climate-related extreme weather events, and a global commitment to limiting warming well below 2° C, certain industries face a variety of risks.
Despite Central Petroleum’s relaxed approach, the energy industry is deemed high risk and a recent report by Carbon Tracker highlights the LNG industry as particularly vulnerable to stranded asset risk.
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