‘Far from negligible’: New Australian fossil gas web site may have main impression on folks and the planet

“The site’s developers claim it is not possible to link greenhouse gas emissions from Scarborough with climate change or any particular climate-related impact given that the estimated emissions associated with Scarborough are negligible in the context of existing and future predicted global greenhouse gas concentrations. 

“But our research shows emissions output from this new project is far from negligible.” 

The researchers calculated that by 2049, the anticipated Australian emissions from the Scarborough challenge alone will comprise virtually half (49 per cent) of Australia’s whole annual CO2 emissions price range. 

Co-author Dr Nicola Maher, additionally from ANU, mentioned that past 2050 all emissions from the Scarborough challenge would require sturdy CO2 removing from the environment if Australia is to satisfy its emissions discount targets. 

“That would require a huge increase in the effectiveness and scale of carbon capture and storage technology. For example, in 2023, human activities to move carbon dioxide from the atmosphere into storage amounted to only 0.04 million tonnes of carbon dioxide globally, which is equivalent to just 0.6 per cent of the planned annual Australian emissions from the Scarborough project,” Dr Maher mentioned. 

Dr Maher mentioned the analysis supplies a science-based basis that may be employed by firms and governments in quantifying the implications of fossil gas manufacturing and use, and in assessing whether or not initiatives fall inside acceptable ranges of environmental and societal threat. 

Associate Professor Andrew King, from the University of Melbourne, mentioned: “These findings contrast sharply with claims that individual fossil fuel projects will have negligible impacts. In this case study alone, it is shown that the additional warming caused by carbon dioxide emissions from the Scarborough project will persist for multiple decades to centuries and cause long-term environmental and social impacts.” 

The researchers employed a sturdy methodology generally known as the Transient Climate Response to CO2 Emissions (TCRE) to calculate the contribution of those emissions to world warming. The TCRE is a significant software of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and works utilizing a mixture of our scientific understanding of the earth system, direct observations, and local weather mannequin simulations.