Future Gas Strategy submission analysis

The Business Council of Australia (BCA) and Australian Energy Producers (AEP) submissions to the Future Gas Strategy were analysed for alignment or misalignment with 1.5˚C scenarios. 

Limiting warming to as close as possible to 1.5˚C requires a complete fossil fuel phase out, including natural gas. No new gas fields and no new liquified natural gas facilities are needed under the International Energy Agency’s Net Zero by 2050 roadmap.

Australia was one of 196 countries that signed the Paris Agreement in 2015, a legally binding international treaty to hold “hold the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2ºC above pre-industrial levels” and to pursue efforts “to limit the temperature increase to 1.5ºC above pre-industrial levels.” Despite this commitment, Australia continues to approve major brownfield (expansion to existing facilities) and greenfield (new) projects.  

In October 2023, the Department of Industry, Science and Resources (DISR) released the Future Gas Strategy Consultation Paper. The Strategy received 292 submissions, including 244 public submissions.  Input from the submissions was incorporated into the government’s final Future Gas Strategy released in May 2024.

This report examines the Australian Energy Producers (AEP) and the Business Council of Australia (BCA) submissions for scientific credibility and accuracy, as well as their alignment (or misalignment) with Australia’s Paris Agreement commitments and international climate targets.  

Content from the AEP and BCA submissions were compared against pathways where the rise in global mean temperature is limited to 1.5ºC. This includes: the 1.5ºC aligned scenario from the One Earth Climate Model (OECM), the IEA’s Net Zero Emissions by 2050 Scenario and general guidelines from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Additional data from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO), International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) and The Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) provided insight into energy technology readiness and cost, as well as gas supply and demand in Australia, the Asia-Pacific and globally.

Several themes promoted by the AEP and BCA – and echoed in the Future Gas Strategy – are inconsistent with 1.5˚C aligned pathways. These include continued investment in new gas supply and infrastructure, an overstated role for gas in net zero scenarios, reliance on underperforming technologies such as carbon capture and storage (CCS), and underestimation of renewable energy’s affordability and reliability. The submissions also overstate future gas demand, depend on scenario modelling that misleads on the feasibility of gas in net zero pathways, and neglect viable alternatives to address short-term supply gaps.