Fifty-year extension for one of Australia’s biggest CO2 emitters likely after WA ditches emissions-reduction rules

The Conservation Council of WA say total emissions from the extension of Woodside’s North West Shelf gas processing plant on the Burrup Hub could reach 6bn tonnes once the gas is exported and burned overseas. Photograph: Krystle Wright/The Guardian

The Western Australian Labor government appears all but certain to give one of Australia’s biggest greenhouse gas emitters the green light to operate until 2070 after it announced it would abolish state emissions-reduction requirements.

Scientists have warned the proposal to extend the life of the North West Shelf gas processing plant on the Burrup Peninsula in the country’s remote north-west is linked to the development of at least three major gas fields and could ultimately result in billions of tonnes of climate pollution being released into the atmosphere.