Resources minister faces calls to correct her claim all Beetaloo emissions will be offset

The resources minister, Madeleine King, is facing calls to correct her claim in a major speech that all greenhouse gas emissions from developing a massive fossil fuel basin in the Northern Territory will be offset to limit their impact on the climate.

Speaking at the National Press Club in Canberra on Wednesday, King defended her support for the development of the Beetaloo gas basin south of Darwin after being asked if she was comfortable with the impact that the emissions from the gas would have on Australians.

King was photographed laughing alongside the NT chief minister, Lia Finocchiaro, as they celebrated the first gas being pumped from the basin last month. The minister told the press club the basin was a “very important resource” for the NT and to help supply gas to Australia’s east coast and export markets.

She said it was being developed after a “landmark scientific study” in 2018 into whether fracking should be allowed in the territory. Known as the Pepper inquiry, that government-commissioned investigation made 135 recommendations, including that the NT and Australian governments should aim to ensure that any onshore shale gas developments did not increase the country’s total emissions.

In practice, that would require any climate pollution from gas developments – from extraction, processing, transport and the fuel’s use – to be fully offset through the purchase of carbon credits.

King told the press club that the NT government “took up and implemented” the inquiry’s recommendations. “My understanding from those recommendations is that the emissions are accounted for and offset, but I would have to check that,” she said.

The NT government does not require emissions from Beetaloo basin to be offset. The Guardian revealed that the previous Labor territory government dropped the requirement after the gas industry objected. The Country Liberal party government maintained that position when elected in 2024.

Some emissions from gas developments in the NT will need to be offset under a federal climate policy, the safeguard mechanism, that is applied to operations that emit more than 100,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year. But that applies only to pollution directly from the facility, not the full lifecycle emissions as recommended by the Pepper inquiry.

King told the press club the safeguard mechanism would be applied to Beetaloo basin developments if emissions were above the threshold. “That is how we manage dealing with emissions in this country,” she said.

But research by Tim Baxter, of the consultancy Naru Research, found about 95% of emissions expected from four gas projects in the Beetaloo basin this decade would not have to be offset.

Baxter said King either “isn’t across her brief or she’s being intentionally misleading”.

“The Pepper inquiry was clear. For the territory to begin to manage the risks of fracking and unconventional gas in the NT all emissions occurring in Australia must be fully offset,” he said.

“The safeguard mechanism does not deliver this … If NT fracking is detonated, it could single-handedly undo all efforts to cut Australia’s climate emissions.”

Kirsty Howey, a former head of Environment Centre NT, now leading the Wilderness Society, said governments had broken a promise to fully act on the recommendations of the Pepper inquiry. “It’s one of the greatest failures of climate policy in history,” she said.

The acting chief head of Environment Centre NT, Bree Ahrens, called on the minister to “correct the public record”. She said an estimate by the energy company Santos suggested if the Beetaloo basin was fully developed and its gas burned it could lead to emissions 60 times what Australia releases into the atmosphere each year.

“Frackers are being given a free pass on climate emissions, and it’s the territory that will pay the price,” she said.

A spokesperson for King said successive NT governments had “accepted and implemented all 135 recommendations of the Pepper review”. They said the safeguard mechanism required all shale gas facilities, including Beetaloo basin gas extraction facilities, to have net zero emissions if they emitted more than 100,000 tonnes of CO₂ a year.