New Australian research has effectively debunked claims that individual fossil fuel projects are too small to impact global warming, linking each new investment in coal and gas extraction to measurable increases in global temperatures.
Published in the Nature journal Climate Action the research led by the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Weather of the 21st Century and involving climate scientists from six Australian universities focuses on the Scarborough gas project in Northwest Australia.
Measurable Warming and Significant Impacts
The study found that the Scarborough project alone, with its estimated output of 876 million tonnes Mt of CO2 emissions, is projected to cause an increase of approximately 0.00039^C in global temperature.
While this temperature increase may seem small, Associate Professor Andrew King from the University of Melbourne explained that its environmental and societal impacts are actually large:
• It could expose over half a million people to unprecedented extreme heat.
• It would lead to the loss of approximately 16 million corals in the Great Barrier Reef due to more frequent mass bleaching events.
• It would cause hundreds of additional deaths due to extreme heat in Europe alone.
The research directly contradicts the claims often made by companies and governments that anticipated greenhouse gas outputs from such projects are negligible and unmeasurable.
Methodology and Long-Term Consequences
The researchers used a robust methodology known as the Transient Climate Response to CO2 Emissions (TCRE), a major tool of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), to calculate the emissions and impacts of individual projects.
The TCRE calculation determined that the 876 Mt of CO2 from the Scarborough project would be expected to cause 0.00039^C of additional global warming, with a 66-100% likelihood of causing warming between 0.00024^C and 0.00055C.
Associate Professor King stressed that the additional warming caused by these CO2 emissions will “persist for multiple decades to centuries”, causing long-term environmental and social impacts.
Budget Implications for Australia
The scale of the Scarborough project emissions poses a major challenge to Australia climate targets:
Anticipated emissions from the Scarborough project alone will comprise almost half 49 per cent of Australia entire annual CO2 emissions budget by 2049.
Beyond 2050, all emissions from the project would require durable CO2 removal from the atmosphere if Australia is to meet its emission reduction targets, necessitating a massive increase in the effectiveness and scale of carbon capture technology.
The Scarborough gas project, which is expected to begin production in 2026 and continue for 31 years with potential for expansion, is now clearly quantified. Dr. Nicola Maher of the Australian National University stated that this research provides a “science-based foundation” for companies and governments to quantify the consequences of fossil fuel production and assess whether these projects fall within acceptable levels of risk.