PDF of Open Letter can be downloaded in full here.
Full text of open letter and list of signatories below.
Dear Premier and Ministers of the Government of Western Australia —
Unconventional oil and gas development in Western Australia should not go ahead under any circumstances.
The consequences of global warming are already extremely serious; including loss of human life, extreme weather, destruction of natural ecosystems and property damage.
Western Australia is already experiencing severe impacts of global warming, which will become far worse if emissions are not decisively reduced.
Within our children’s lifetime average summer temperatures in Western Australia could rise by up to 6.5 degrees,[i] with even higher extremes. Bushfires and drought will increase, rainfall will continue to reduce in the populated south west, agriculture will decline, heat stress deaths will increase, among many other devastating impacts.[ii]
Our view is based on the scientifically robust carbon budget framework. On this basis, most existing fossil fuel reserves must remain unburned. Any new fossil fuel development is incompatible with the goal of the 2015 Paris climate agreement that aims to hold the rise in global temperature to well below 2.0°C above pre-industrial levels and to pursue every effort to limit the rise to 1.5°C.[iii]
Unconventional gas resources in Western Australia are one of the largest unexploited potential sources of carbon in the world. [iv] Opening these to exploitation would, in our view, be grossly irresponsible given urgency of the climate situation.
As scientists and experts concerned about the wellbeing of the people of Western Australia and the rest of the world, we strongly urge that that unconventional oil and gas is permanently banned in Western Australia.
[i] Government of Western Australia, Department of Water and Environmental Regulation, About Climate Change in WA: WA’s Climate Future, Accesses 21/6/18, https://www.der.wa.gov.au/your-environment/climate-change/252-about-clim…
[ii] Government of Western Australia, Department of Water and Environmental Regulation, About Climate Change in WA: Likely Impacts, Accesses 21/6/18, https://www.der.wa.gov.au/your-environment/climate-change/252-about-clim…
[iii] McGlade and Ekins (2015) The geographical distribution of fossil fuels unused when limiting global warming to 2 °C, https://www.nature.com/articles/nature14016
[iv] EIA (2013) Technically Recoverable Shale Oil and Shale Gas Resources: An Assessment of 137 Shale Formations in 41 Countries Outside the United States, https://www.eia.gov/analysis/studies/worldshalegas/pdf/overview.pdf
Signatories
|
Professor Fiona Stanley AC, FAA, FASSA, FAAHMS |
Distinguished Research Professor, University of Western Australia; Australian of the Year 2003 |
|
Professor Tim Flannery |
Chief Councillor of the Climate Council |
|
Professor Lesley Hughes |
Distinguished Professor of Biology Macquarie University; Climate Council Councillor |
|
Professor Hilary Bambrick |
Head of School, Public Health and Social Work, Queensland University of Technology |
|
Associate Prof Tilman Ruff AM, FRACP |
Nossal Institute for Global Health, School of Population and Global Health, University of Melbourne |
|
Associate Professor Shauna Murray |
Climate Change Cluster (C3), University of Technology, Sydney |
|
Professor Rob Moodie AM |
Professor of Public Health University of Melbourne, University of Malawi |
|
Professor John Quiggin |
VC Senior Research Fellow, School of Economics, University of Queensland |
|
Adjunct Professor Frank H Talbot AM, FRZS (NSW) |
Adjunct Professor, Macquarie University |
|
Professor Rick Cavicchioli |
Biotechnology and Biomolecular Sciences, University of NSW |
|
Professor Will Steffen |
Councillor, Climate Council; Climate Scientist, ANU |
|
Associate Professor Malte Meinshausen |
Melbourne |
|
Tim Forcey |
Energy Advisor; former Gas Principal AEMO; former gas specialist Exxon, Esso BHP, Jemena. |
|
Associate Professor Bayden Wood |
Director Centre for Biospectroscopy, Monash University |
|
Adjunct Professor Peter Sainsbury |
Sydney Medical School, University of Notre Dame |
|
Ian Dunlop |
Former senior executive Royal Dutch Shell; former |
|
Dr Sue Wareham AOM |
President, Medical Association for Prevention of War (Australia) |
|
Dr Luke Kemp |
Senior Economist, Vivid Economics; Honorary Lecturer, Australian National University |
|
Professor Ove Hoegh Guldberg |
Professor and Director, Global Change Institute, University of Queensland |
|
Dr Will J Grant |
Senior Lecturer, Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science, The Australian National University |
|
Alan Pears AM |
Senior Industry Fellow, RMIT University |
|
Professor John Church |
Climate Change Research Centre, University of New South Wales |
|
Professor Steven Sherwood |
ARC Laureate Fellow, ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science and ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes, UNSW Climate Change Research Centre |
|
Professor Michael Ashley |
Department of Astrophysics, University of New South Wales |
|
Professor David Bowman |
Professor of Environmental Change Biology, School of Natural Sciences, University of Tasmania |
|
Professor Ian Lowe |
Griffith University |
|
Dr Brett Murphy |
Senior Research Fellow, Research Institute for the Environment and Livelihoods, Charles Darwin University |
|
Fiona Armstrong |
Founder and Executive Director, Climate and Health Alliance; Westpac / Financial Review 100 Women of Influence (2016) |
|
Dr Peter Dart |
Institute for Future Environments, Queensland University of Technology |
|
Dr David Holmes |
Director, Monash Climate Change Communication Research Hub |
|
Professor John Wiseman |
Professorial Research Fellow, Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute, Adjunct Professor, Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, The University of Melbourne |
|
Professor Andy Pitman |
Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes, The University of New South Wales |
|
Graeme Pearman AM FAA FTSE |
Former Chief, CSIRO Atmospheric Research; Professorial, Fellow, University of Melbourne |
|
Ben Oquist |
Executive Director, The Australia Institute |
|
Dr Liz Hanna PhD, MPH, BA, RCCN, RN FPHAA, FACN |
Honorary Senior Fellow, Climate Change Institute, Australian National University |
|
Ellin Lede |
Phd Researcher, Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, UK |
|
Dr Bill Hare |
CEO and Managing Director/ Senior Scientist, Climate Analytics |
|
Dr Anja Skrobiln |
Research Fellow, Quantitative and Applied Ecology Group, University of Melbourne |
|
Professor Philip Jennings BSc (Hons) UWA, PhD Harvard |
Emeritus Professor of Physics and Energy Studies, Murdoch University |
|
Professor Katrin Meissner |
Director, Climate Change Research Centre, UNSW |
|
Professor Malcolm McCulloch FAA FRS |
ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, The University of Western Australia |
|
Prof Richard J Hobbs |
IAS Distinguished Fellow, School of Biological Scien ces, The University of Western Australia |
|
Professor Hans Lambers FRNAAS, FAA |
Emeritus Professor at UWA; Adjunct Professor at Curtin University |
|
Professor Charles Watson |
Emeritus John Curtin Distinguished Professor of Health Sciences, Curtin University |
|
Associate Professor John Bailey BSc, PhD |
Emeritus Professor, School of Veterinary and Life Sciences, Murdoch University |
|
Professor Bruce Armstrong AM FAA HonMD(UWA) |
Adjunct Professor, School of Global and Population Health, UWA; Emeritus Professor, School of Public Health, University of Sydney |
|
Professor Carmen Lawrence |
Faculty of Science, School of Psychological Science, UWA; former Premier of Western Australia |
|
Professor Peter Newman AO |
John Curtin Distinguished Professor of Sustainability, Curtin University Sustainability Policy (CUSP) Institute, School of Design and the Built Environment, Western Australian Scientist of the Year 2018. |
|
Dianne Katscherian |
Adjunct Senior Research Fellow at Curtin University |
|
Tim Buckley |
Director of Energy Finance Studies, Australasia, the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis |
|
Bruce Robertson |
Investment Analyst, the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis |
|
Dr Richard Denniss |
Chief Economist, The Australia Institute |
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