2 weeks Ago By Miklos Bolza
Fossil fuel giant Santos did not have the evidence to back up speculative but publicly announced claims that it could meet international climate change goals by reaching net-zero emissions by 2040, a court has been told. The oil and gas exploration company has been accused of misleading and deceptive conduct by advocacy group Australasian Centre for Corporate Responsibility in Federal Court proceedings launched in August 2021. In particular, the organisation claims Santos did not have a proper basis for saying it had a clear pathway to reduce emissions by 26 to 30 per cent by 2030 and go completely net zero by 2040.
"We'll be submitting that Santos lacked reasonable grounds for making these statements," the centre's barrister, Noel Hutley SC, said as a 13-day trial began on Monday. Santos's climate change "plan" was not a plan at all, Justice Brigitte Markovic heard. "It was little more than a series of speculations .
.. cobbled together in a matter of weeks," Mr Hutley said.
The centre holds shares in firms like Santos to try to force them to meet the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement, an international treaty on climate change that was signed by various nations in 2016. Santos, which has operations in Australia, Papua New Guinea, Timor-Leste and the USA, has been accused of "greenwashing" through claims it could help Australia meet the Paris target of net-zero emissions by 2040. It has also been accused of misleading the public through claims that natural gas is a "clean fuel" and that hydrogen produced by natural gas is clean and made with zero emissions.
The centre alleges these misleading statements were made in an annual report and investor day briefing in 2020 and a climate change report released in 2021. The organisation is seeking court declarations that Santos has engaged in misleading or deceptive conduct. It is also seeking injunctions preventing the firm from committing this type of alleged greenwashing again and forcing it to issue a corrective notice about the environmental impacts of its operations.
The trial continues..
