The Sydney Environmental Institute at the University of Sydney convened an independent group of oil and gas industry specialists with backgrounds in science, law and academia to examine Equinor’s plan in detail and make a special submission to NOPSEMA.

The group found: “Throughout its Environment Plan (EP) the operator, Equinor, has consistently made optimistic choices in order to convince the public and NOPSEMA that “it is safe” to drill Stromlo-1.”

Read the report in full here.

Of particular note the submission cites:

• A failure to consult Indigenous organisations.

• A failure to consult with groups deemed outside an arbitrarily declared impact zone - a 40km radius around the Stromlo-1 well which is almost 400km off the coast in the middle of the Southern Ocean – despite their own spill modelling showing thousands of kilometres of Australian coastline potentially affected.

Of particular note the submission cites:

• A failure to adequately consider safeguards for the 41 listed threatened species found in the Bight.

• A failure to quantify the “human, technological and financial resources” that would be needed to conduct an oil spill clean-up in the Bight.

The climate crisis is not a forecast – its impacts are real, present and devastating. Communities and nature are both facing extinction and this includes our oceans.

In September 2019, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) delivered the Special Report on the Oceans and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate. It reinforced the urgent need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in order to limit the scale of changes to the oceans.

If we are to protect our oceans and marine life and ensure a liveable future for all, we must transition from fossil fuels. Equinor’s plans for the Great Australian Bight are too risky and threaten Australian coastal communities, economies, livelihoods and our marine environment.

Changes in climate such as warming, acidification, oxygen loss etc are already disrupting marine species and ecosystems. These impacts extend to the communities who depend on them.

So far, the ocean has adopted more than 90% of the additional heat in the climate system and this is reducing the supply of oxygen and nutrients for marine life.

Since 1982, there has been a doubling in marine heatwaves. If emissions continue to increase at current rates, warming events will be 50 times more prevalent.

Coastal communities that rely on seafood as part of their dietary requirements, may face risks to nutritional health and food security if fish populations continue to decline.

“Cutting greenhouse gas emissions will limit impacts on ocean ecosystems that provide us with food, support our health and shape our cultures,” said Hans-Otto Pörtner, Co-Chair of IPCC Working Group II. “Reducing other pressures such as pollution will further help marine life deal with changes in their environment, while enabling a more resilient ocean”.