Albanese’s resources minister celebrating the Beetaloo carbon bomb is a hell of a choice. Labor can’t say it wasn’t warned | Clear Air — SkimNews
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- Madeleine King joined NT chief minister Lia Finocchiaro and Tamboran Resources CEO Todd Abbott to mark the first gas release from the Beetaloo basin, a ~28,000 sq km shale gas field between Katherine and Tennant Creek that Abbott said holds roughly 200 trillion cubic feet of gas — claiming it was the world's largest non-oil gas field outside the Middle East or Russia.
- Tamboran Resources' pilot launched after the former NT Labor government abandoned a 2018 inquiry recommendation that any shale gas development must not increase Australia's net emissions, following industry objections; the NT government also signed a contract to buy gas from the pilot for use in Darwin.
- The Country Liberal Party scrapped a 50%-by-2030 renewable energy target it had backed in opposition and released a climate resilience plan whose first listed action was to accelerate Beetaloo gas production.
- Asked about "carbon bomb" criticisms, King said Labor was "dealing with climate change" while also supporting gas, without referencing a UN Environment Programme report released this week finding the Paris 1.5°C limit will inevitably be passed, with 1.8°C now the most optimistic outcome.
- Anthony Albanese was at the Pacific Islands Forum in Palau meeting leaders of nations facing existential sea-level rise while his resources minister celebrated the gas launch back home.
- Projects emerging from the NT approach will not face emissions limits under territory law; some will fall under the federal safeguard mechanism, but the piece cites analysis suggesting it will have little effect on Beetaloo emissions in the next few years.
Why it matters: The Beetaloo basin's trajectory depends on sustained political backing: taxpayer underwriting helped get the pilot off the ground, NT law won't constrain emissions from expanded production, and the federal safeguard mechanism is projected to do little near-term. With a UN report this week confirming the 1.5°C target is already being passed, a Labor minister's celebratory launch of new fossil fuel supply — while her PM courts Pacific island leaders facing existential sea-level rise — crystallises the contradiction in Australia's climate posture.
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