Shorten's NT fracking boost 'disastrous'

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LETTER TO THE EDITOR
 
Sir – Opposition leader Bill Shorten’s plan to create a $1.5bn fund to encourage the unconventional gas industry in Queensland and the Northern Territory is a disastrous move for landholders, regional communities, and the climate.
 
Responding to reports a Shorten Government, if elected, would replace the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility with a fund to encourage onshore gas projects. The announcement will not win votes during an election where climate change is at the forefront of people’s minds.
 
“The unconventional gas industry is a massive carbon polluter.
 
Fracking for gas in the Northern Territory’s Beetaloo Basin could unleash a carbon disaster that would make it impossible for Australia to meet our Paris targets.
 
It will raise Australia’s emissions by 6%, at a time we need to be bringing them down.
 
Fracking the gas out of the Beetaloo Basin has been measured to be the pollution equivalent of building and operating at least 50 new coal fired power stations – it’s the wrong move for Australia.
 
The CO2 emissions created during the extraction and transport process are far greater than any offsets created by burning the gas for power.
 
The industry has also still been unable to address the issue of releasing methane emissions from gas wells.
 
Federal Labor has ruled out NAIF funding for the climate wrecking project of Adani, how can it justify propping up an industry that will trash the Northern Territory with fracking?
 
Territorians are overwhelmingly opposed to the onshore gas fracking industry. There have been ongoing protests since the Gunner Government lifted the moratorium on the fracking industry last year, and these will no doubt increase if a future Shorten Government ignores the will of the people and encourages fracking in the NT.
 
Naomi Hogan
Lock the Gate Alliance
 
 
 

2 COMMENTS

  1. CO2 emission is not the problem. Plants need CO2 to produce oxygen.
    It’s the multitude of artificial lab-made chemicals used in fracking that are polluting and poisoning the country.
    Fracking needs to be banned, period.
    Also stop digging the ground for anything anymore already.
    We need to work only with surface resources now and learn to reuse and recycle in a natural way, until Mother Earth can catch up and heal Herself.

  2. The Labor / Liberal coalition are beyond climate change deniers, they are climate change supporters. They want it, they support it, they’re working for it.

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