PERTH, Wednesday 22 October 2025 — A new report released today by Greenpeace Australia Pacific and Springmount Advisory shows for the first time how Western Australia can slash emissions by 90% across four major sectors by 2050, and become a global renewable energy powerhouse, by rapidly scaling up investment in green energy and industry.
Power Shift: WA’s Electrified Future provides the first comprehensive timeline for the phase out of fossil fuels, including gas, in the state, while transforming WA’s economy, lowering household power bills, and supporting the green jobs and industries of the future.
The report provides detailed policy level solutions to achieving these ambitions across key sectors including electricity, industry, transport and agriculture.
Crucially, the report reveals WA does not need to open any new gas fields to meet its energy needs, and can phase out gas as existing fields and plants reach end of life.
Key findings:
- WA can take a massive share of Australia’s green future opportunity but it must act decisively to build industries at scale to compete.
- With the right policy settings, the state can reduce emissions by 90% by 2050 across four key industries, growing its economy and playing a leading role in global efforts to limit temperature rise to 1.5C.
- This transformation would require roughly only a third of the investment that has flowed to developing WA’s gas export facilities in recent decades ($74.3 billion over the next 25 years).
- The final gas powered generator in Western Australia could close by 2046, with gas only required to supply 1% of WA’s electricity by 2035.
With the right policy levers, Western Australia can reduce emissions in line with 1.5C, by:
- Increasing EV uptake by 3.8% on average each year to reach 99% of total vehicles being electric by 2049.
- Rolling out renewables at almost 10 times their current annual rate in the next four years.
Geoff Bice, WA Campaign Lead at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, said: “For the first time, this report sets out a clear path to our green future. With our skilled workforce, industrial base and abundant wind and solar resources, Western Australia is in prime position to seize the opportunities of the clean energy transition, and become a global renewable energy powerhouse.
“But we need to act quickly and decisively. Our trading partners and the rest of the world are already moving away from fossil fuels and investing in the clean industries of the future — and Western Australia needs to move with it.
“The report definitively shows we don’t need new gas. By focusing investment in renewable energy, WA can maintain its economic security, while also delivering enormous benefits for our community — creating secure jobs, strengthening regional economies, and building a cleaner, more resilient future for the State.”
Tom Quinn, Managing Director at Springmount Advisory, said: “Western Australia is trailing the rest of Australia in its renewable energy rollout, meanwhile our export partners are rapidly reducing their reliance on coal and gas.
“With massive reductions in the cost of wind and solar power over the past decade, there is no reason why WA shouldn’t be charging ahead into the green energy future, and away from fossil fuels of the past.
“An ambitious strategy to diversify and decarbonise the state economy is the key to unlock future economic prosperity, attract new industries and drive down the cost of living.”
ENDS
For more information or interviews contact Lucy Keller on 0491 135 308 or lucy.keller@greenpeace.org
The case shows that climate change is a fundamental human rights violation—and the victory of Bonaire, a Dutch territory, could open the door for similar lawsuits globally.
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A Tiny Caribbean Island Sued the Netherlands Over Climate Change, and Won
Climate Change
Greenpeace organisations to appeal USD $345 million court judgment in Energy Transfer’s intimidation lawsuit
SYDNEY, Saturday 28 February 2026 — Greenpeace International and Greenpeace organisations in the US announce they will seek a new trial and, if necessary, appeal the decision with the North Dakota Supreme Court following a North Dakota District Court judgment today awarding Energy Transfer (ET) USD $345 million.
ET’s SLAPP suit remains a blatant attempt to silence free speech, erase Indigenous leadership of the Standing Rock movement, and punish solidarity with peaceful resistance to the Dakota Access Pipeline. Greenpeace International will also continue to seek damages for ET’s bullying lawsuits under EU anti-SLAPP legislation in the Netherlands.
Mads Christensen, Greenpeace International Executive Director said: “Energy Transfer’s attempts to silence us are failing. Greenpeace International will continue to resist intimidation tactics. We will not be silenced. We will only get louder, joining our voices to those of our allies all around the world against the corporate polluters and billionaire oligarchs who prioritise profits over people and the planet.
“With hard-won freedoms under threat and the climate crisis accelerating, the stakes of this legal fight couldn’t be higher. Through appeals in the US and Greenpeace International’s groundbreaking anti-SLAPP case in the Netherlands, we are exploring every option to hold Energy Transfer accountable for multiple abusive lawsuits and show all power-hungry bullies that their attacks will only result in a stronger people-powered movement.”
The Court’s final judgment today rejects some of the jury verdict delivered in March 2025, but still awards hundreds of millions of dollars to ET without a sound basis in law. The Greenpeace defendants will continue to press their arguments that the US Constitution does not allow liability here, that ET did not present evidence to support its claims, that the Court admitted inflammatory and irrelevant evidence at trial and excluded other evidence supporting the defense, and that the jury pool in Mandan could not be impartial.[1][2]
ET’s back-to-back lawsuits against Greenpeace International and the US organisations Greenpeace USA (Greenpeace Inc.) and Greenpeace Fund are clear-cut examples of SLAPPs — lawsuits attempting to bury nonprofits and activists in legal fees, push them towards bankruptcy and ultimately silence dissent.[3] Greenpeace International, which is based in the Netherlands, is pursuing justice in Europe, with a suit against ET under Dutch law and the European Union’s new anti-SLAPP directive, a landmark test of the new legislation which could help set a powerful precedent against corporate bullying.[4]
Kate Smolski, Program Director at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, said: “This is part of a worrying trend globally: fossil fuel corporations are increasingly using litigation to attack and silence ordinary people and groups using the law to challenge their polluting operations — and we’re not immune to these tactics here in Australia.
“Rulings like this have a chilling effect on democracy and public interest litigation — we must unite against these silencing tactics as bad for Australians and bad for our democracy. Our movement is stronger than any corporate bully, and grows even stronger when under attack.”
Energy Transfer’s SLAPPs are part of a wave of abusive lawsuits filed by Big Oil companies like Shell, Total, and ENI against Greenpeace entities in recent years.[3] A couple of these cases have been successfully stopped in their tracks. This includes Greenpeace France successfully defeating TotalEnergies’ SLAPP on 28 March 2024, and Greenpeace UK and Greenpeace International forcing Shell to back down from its SLAPP on 10 December 2024.
-ENDS-
Images available in Greenpeace Media Library
Notes:
[1] The judgment entered by North Dakota District Court Judge Gion follows a jury verdict finding Greenpeace entities liable for more than US$660 million on March 19, 2025. Judge Gion subsequently threw out several items from the jury’s verdict, reducing the total damages to approximately US$345 million.
[2] Public statements from the independent Trial Monitoring Committee
[3] Energy Transfer’s first lawsuit was filed in federal court in 2017 under the RICO Act – the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, a US federal statute designed to prosecute mob activity. The case was dismissed in 2019, with the judge stating the evidence fell “far short” of what was needed to establish a RICO enterprise. The federal court did not decide on Energy Transfer’s claims based on state law, so Energy Transfer promptly filed a new case in a North Dakota state court with these and other state law claims.
[4] Greenpeace International sent a Notice of Liability to Energy Transfer on 23 July 2024, informing the pipeline giant of Greenpeace International’s intention to bring an anti-SLAPP lawsuit against the company in a Dutch Court. After Energy Transfer declined to accept liability on multiple occasions (September 2024, December 2024), Greenpeace International initiated the first test of the European Union’s anti-SLAPP Directive on 11 February 2025 by filing a lawsuit in Dutch court against Energy Transfer. The case was officially registered in the docket of the Court of Amsterdam on 2 July, 2025. Greenpeace International seeks to recover all damages and costs it has suffered as a result of Energy Transfers’s back-to-back, abusive lawsuits demanding hundreds of millions of dollars from Greenpeace International and the Greenpeace organisations in the US. The next hearing in the Court of Amsterdam is scheduled for 16 April, 2026.
Media contact:
Kate O’Callaghan on 0406 231 892 or kate.ocallaghan@greenpeace.org
The Trump administration’s relentless rollback of public health and environmental protections has allowed widespread toxic exposures to flourish, warn experts who helped implement safeguards now under assault.
In a new report that outlines a dozen high-risk pollutants given new life thanks to weakened, delayed or rescinded regulations, the Environmental Protection Network, a nonprofit, nonpartisan group of hundreds of former Environmental Protection Agency staff, warns that the EPA under President Donald Trump has abandoned the agency’s core mission of protecting people and the environment from preventable toxic exposures.
Former EPA Staff Detail Expanding Pollution Risks Under Trump
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Greenpeace organisations to appeal USD $345 million court judgment in Energy Transfer’s intimidation lawsuit
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