Panama’s environment minister has joined a growing push for reform of the UN climate change negotiations, proposed by campaigners and academics in recent years – one of the first such calls by a minister directly involved in the talks.
Juan Carlos Navarro told Climate Home in a recent interview on the sidelines of Climate Week in New York that the current system for approving decisions – which requires all countries to agree by consensus – has not delivered good enough results and should instead use a majority or super-majority decision-making process.
“By consensus, you cannot get 186 nations to agree on anything. It’s a miracle we have come so far,” said Navarro. “We need to change the rules so we have a basic, rational, majority or super-majority decision-making process where we can do things better and faster.”
The comments follow pressure from civil society and academics to reform the UN climate process. In June, more than 200 campaign groups issued a joint call to reform the decision-making process, which they argued can be blocked by oil and gas-producing countries and has reached a “breaking point”.
Andreas Sieber, policy director with climate advocacy group 350.org, said he was sympathetic to Panama’s proposal, but added “it would just be part of a puzzle” to make the UN climate talks work more efficiently.
He added that it could be hard to get over the line as earlier efforts to secure a rule on voting as a last resort had met with fierce opposition from oil-producing countries – and decisions reached by consensus have the weight of having all the countries behind them, he noted.
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Erika Lennon, Senior Attorney at the Center for International Environmental Law, celebrated that more people are talking about potential changes to the UNFCCC, as “being totally beholden to consensus-based decision making is not leading to the outcomes that we need”.
She also agreed that voting is just part of the solution, and suggested possible reforms could include increased transparency in the negotiation rooms, inclusion of civil society and indigenous groups, and a conflict of interest rule that blocks fossil fuel companies from participating.
During last year’s COP29 in Baku, a group of experts known as the Club of Rome – among them the former UN climate chief Christiana Figueres and former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon – issued an open letter proposing ways to modernise the climate process.
The current structure of COPs “simply cannot deliver the change at exponential speed and scale, which is essential to ensure a safe climate landing for humanity”, the letter said. They argued instead for “smaller, more frequent, solution-driven meetings” where countries can discuss progress and be held accountable.
At that same COP in Azerbaijan, Saudi Arabia managed to block all mentions of fossil fuels in text summarising discussions on cutting greenhouse gas emissions. It was able to do this despite all countries having agreed to transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems just one year earlier at COP28.
UN Climate Change consults on COP process
In a speech at Climate Week in New York, Simon Stiell, the executive secretary of UN Climate Change, noted that recent COPs have delivered “concrete results and global steps forward”, adding that cooperation under the process has lowered expected global warming from 5C to closer to 3C.
But, he conceded, it is “imperfect”. “As this new era of implementation gathers pace, we must also keep evolving, and striving towards faster, fully-inclusive, higher-quality decisions that tie the formal process ever-closer to real economies and real lives,” he said.
Senior experts have been asked to examine how the UN climate process could be improved and will deliver their ideas to Stiell later this year. The secretariat will consult with countries on any potential reforms it wants to pursue in 2026, the UN’s climate chief added.
Brazil, the host country of this year’s COP, has put the focus on global mobilisation to implement in practice what governments signed up to in the 2015 Paris Agreement. Last year it proposed setting up a UN Climate Change Council in order to support that work, but this proposal does not seem to have gained much traction amid geopolitical tensions and Trump’s attacks on multilateral climate action.
Downsizing COPs?
Panama’s Navarro added that the UN climate summit has grown too big, making its scope “ridiculous”. In 2023, over 83,000 people attended COP28 in Dubai, while COP29 in Baku saw fewer, with 66,778 registered participants.
Navarro said the COP meetings had become an anachronism. “You have thousands and thousands of people who are living off the story,” he said. “They’re living off these meetings, just sitting around the world on expense accounts, creating a bigger carbon footprint for the planet, and we’re not achieving anything.”
In April 2024, UNFCCC head Stiell said personally he “would certainly like to see future COPs reduce in size”, telling an audience at London’s Chatham House think-tank that “bigger doesn’t necessarily mean better”.
This year, COP30 will be held in the Amazon city of Belem, which poses “self-evident” financial and logistical limitations, according to Navarro, who praised Brazil for being open to hearing the complaints from the Global South countries on this topic.
After many delegations complained over the high costs of accommodation and difficult access, Brazil offered cruise-ship rooms and price caps, and the UN has increased the daily subsidy for diplomats from most developing nations to attend the summit.
Landmark ICJ climate ruling must be turned into concrete action on shipping
‘Less hypocrisy, more concrete results’
“Having said that, and coming back to the point of what COPs have become, I wish that COPs were less bullshit, more concrete results,” Navarro told Climate Home.
His own country – which is judged to be carbon-negative, thanks to its extensive carbon-storing forests – recently published its “Nature Pledge”, combining climate, biodiversity and conservation pledges. Those include restoring 100,000 hectares of ecosystems such as degraded mangroves by 2035, maintaining 30% of Panama’s land and seas under protection and absorbing 5 million tons of CO₂.
Practical measures to achieve that include new equipment for park rangers, more radars to monitor and catch illegal fishing, and fines for polluting industries.
Panama has also set up a Nature Fund, which aims to collect $150 million-$200 million for conservation projects using resources like blue carbon bonds, debt-for-nature swaps and a national carbon market backed by blockchain with revenues going to the public sector to ensure “transparency and accountability”.
Without specifying which, Navarro called out “countries that do an incredible job of greenwashing, talking about conservation and talking about the environment – and they’re either oil producers or plastics producers, or kill whales or are destroying our fisheries, or keep building coal power plants or keep polluting”.
“We’ve run out of time for all of these hypocritical individuals, corporations – or even nations,” he added.
The post Panama environment minister backs calls for reform of UN climate process appeared first on Climate Home News.
Panama environment minister backs calls for reform of UN climate process
What if Australia’s worst offshore oil spill hasn’t happened yet?
I’m terrified by the thought.
Our new report in partnership with Environs Kimberley analyses Woodside’s own oil spill modelling and it reveals a worst-case blowout at the corporation’s proposed Browse gas project at Scott Reef could be up to 30 times larger than the Montara oil spill – one of Australia’s worst environmental disasters to date.
Woodside’s own modelling warns that oil pollution could spread across Scott Reef, the Kimberley coast and beyond, with impacts Woodside itself describes as “severe”, “potentially irreversible” and “catastrophic”.
What’s at stake?
Scott Reef really is like nowhere else on Earth.
Scott Reef is Australia’s largest freestanding oceanic reef, a pristine marine ecosystem that has thrived for around 15 million years. About 270 kilometres off the Kimberley coast, it supports more than 2,000 marine species, including endangered pygmy blue whales, nesting green sea turtles, the endangered dusky sea snake and ancient corals.
Yet Woodside wants to drill up to 57 toxic wells around and underneath it, causing decades of deafening seismic blasting, light and noise pollution, shipping traffic and, of course, the risk of a ‘catastrophic’ oil spill.
What did Woodside’s modelling find?
Before Browse can be approved, Woodside is required to assess what could happen if something goes wrong. We analysed the corporation’s own environmental assessment documents, and the findings are deeply concerning.
Woodside’s modelling shows that the most severe Browse scenario would be the worst oil spill in Australian history, releasing up to 893,739 barrels of condensate into the Timor Sea. For context, the Montara oil spill released 30,000 barrels of oil.
A blowout of this scale could see oil spread hundreds of kilometres, reaching some of Australia’s most important marine environments, extending into Indonesian and Timor-Leste waters and even washing up along parts of the Kimberley coast. Entrained oil – oil mixed throughout the water column – is predicted to travel up to 863 kilometres from the spill site.
The modelling identifies potential impacts to at least nine marine parks, eight reefs and three Indigenous Protected Areas, as well as important habitats for endangered species, including pygmy blue whales, green sea turtles, seabirds and other marine life.
These aren’t just places on a map. They are globally significant marine ecosystems that support ancient coral reefs, endangered wildlife, tourism, fisheries and coastal communities. A spill of this scale wouldn’t simply affect one reef; it has the potential to impact an entire connected marine ecosystem.
Why this matters now
The most important thing is that Browse has not yet been approved. That means there is still time to stop Browse and the serious risks outlined in Woodside’s own modelling.
The science has been done. The risks have been modelled. The decision now rests with the Australian Government.
Governments are often forced to respond after environmental disasters happen. This is one of those rare moments where they have the opportunity to act before one does.
What you can do
Together, we still have the power to stop Woodside and save Scott Reef.
You can help by:
- Sending an email to Environment Minister Murray Watt and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, calling on them to reject Browse.
- Sharing this story to help more Australians understand what’s at stake.
- Encouraging your friends and family to take action.
The more people who support saving Scott Reef, the harder it is for governments to approve Woodside’s drilling plans – Browse.
Together, we can ensure a reef that has existed for millions of years is known for its incredible biodiversity – not as the site of Australia’s worst oil spill.
Let’s save Scott Reef.
What if Australia’s worst offshore oil spill hasn’t happened yet?
Analysis by Greenpeace and Environs Kimberley shows that a severe oil spill at Scott Reef could be the worst in Australian history — Woodside has labeled the impact of such a spill ‘catastrophic’.
According to the fossil fuel company the impacts to Scott Reef ‘would likely be severe and potentially irreversible’. Oily pollution could reach as far as the Kimberley coast to the coasts of Indonesia and Timor Leste while endangered marine species live, breed, forage and migrate within the potential disaster zone: whales, seabirds, turtles and other marine life are all at risk.
Report Summary
Woodside’s Browse drilling plans at Scott Reef have been found to pose unacceptable risks to the Western Australian environment once before. To secure their approvals under Federal and Western Australian law, Woodside has modelled a number of possible oil spill scenarios that could result from the Browse project.
Key Findings
- The most severe Browse scenario would be the worst oil spill in Australian history – up to 30 times bigger than the 2009 Montara oil spill disaster. According to Woodside, the environmental impact of such a spill would be ‘catastrophic’.
- Scott Reef and Sandy Islet could be covered in oily pollution. Woodside has conceded that the impacts to Scott Reef from a major spill ‘would likely be severe and potentially irreversible’.
- A blowout of this scale could see oil washing up on the Western Australian Kimberley Coast, and affect at least nine marine parks, eight reefs, three Indigenous Protected Areas, and several islands in Australian, Indonesian and Timor Leste waters.
- Endangered and vulnerable marine species live, breed, forage and migrate within the potential disaster zone: whales, seabirds, turtles and other marine life are all at risk.
- A Browse oil spill threatens important tourism, diving, surfing and fishing hotspots, with potential ‘long term impacts’ for tourism operators in the Kimberley or visiting Rowley Shoals or Scott Reef.
Scott Reef: An ancient oceanic reef system
Scott Reef, located around 270 kilometres off the Western Australian Kimberley coast, is one of Australia’s largest oceanic reef systems. Ancient Scott Reef has been thriving for 15 million years, having adapted to changing seas. Today, it is a haven for marine life, providing vital habitat for more than a thousand species, including corals, fish, sharks and rays.
The deep waters surrounding the reef are home to 29 known species of whale and dolphin, including endangered pygmy blue whales, which travel along the Western Australian coast and stop at Scott Reef during their annual migration to forage and feed. The dusky sea snake, also classified as endangered, lives at Scott Reef. Sandy Islet, part of Scott Reef, is a nesting ground for a small population of genetically distinct green sea turtles, a species classified as vulnerable.
If Woodside, Australia’s largest oil and gas company, were to gain approval to drill for gas at Scott Reef, the ecosystem would face a barrage of industrial impacts, including seismic blasting, gas flaring, underwater noise, artificial lighting, pipe- laying, and fast-moving vessels over years of construction and operation. Add to that the risk of a major oil spill that could be Australia’s worst environmental disaster, with consequences spreading far beyond Scott Reef.
A disaster worse than Montara, according to Woodside itself
Woodside has proposed drilling 50 new wells around Scott Reef to extract oil and gas from beneath the reef as part of the Browse project. Woodside has proposed to build a 900-kilometre-long undersea pipeline to connect the Scott Reef-Browse site with its North West Shelf facility at Karratha in Western Australia, where the gas would be processed, mostly for international export. Woodside has modelled a number of possible oil spill scenarios that could result from the Browse project. Woodside performed this modelling to comply with mandatory environmental impact assessment requirements under Federal and Western Australian laws.
To identify which areas are at risk of an oil spill from the Browse project, Woodside engaged experts to conduct probabilistic modelling. Experts simulated different spills, noting which locations would be contaminated by oil and how much oil would make it to shore. They also assessed how likely each location was to be affected.
” Woodside’s ‘worst case’ scenario is a blowout at the Torosa gasfield, directly under Scott Reef.”
Greenpeace Australia Pacific and Environs Kimberley’s analysis shows an oil spill at Torosa could see 893,739 barrels of condensate spilled into the Timor Sea. This would be up to 30 times bigger than the 2009 Montara oil spill, considered one of Australia’s worst environmental disasters. Oil leaked into the Timor Sea for days after an oil rig caught fire off the Western Australian coast, causing a 90,000 square kilometre oil slick that spread all the way to Indonesia.
People, places and wildlife at risk
Woodside’s modelling shows that an oil spill at Scott Reef could affect eight reefs, at least nine marine parks and three Indigenous Protected Areas. In the event of a worst-case oil spill, Scott Reef and Sandy Islet, being closest to the wellhead, would be worst affected.
Woodside’s modelling finds that the impacts to Scott Reef from a major spill like this ‘would likely be severe and potentially irreversible’. The impacts of an oil spill are not confined to Scott Reef – according to Woodside’s modelling, ‘hydrocarbon spills resulting from the proposed Browse to NWS Project have the potential to significantly impact shoreline habitats at Scott Reef, Ashmore Reef, Cartier Island and Rowley Shoals.’
Oil from a blowout could also reach neighbouring countries, including Pulau Rote, Savu, Sumba and West Timor in Indonesia, and Timor Leste. This is not an exhaustive list of all places that could be affected by an oil spill at Scott Reef. Once oil hits the water, its spread is influenced by the wind, tides, currents and other external conditions. An oil spill from the Browse project could have a less or more severe impact than the modelling indicates. Equally, Woodside cannot rule out other sites being affected.
A disaster for marine life
Woodside’s oil spill modelling shows that a blowout from the Browse project would put whales, turtles, seabirds, coral, significant feedstocks such as plankton and seagrass, fish, dolphins and other marine life at risk. According to Woodside, a Browse oil spill would:
- Directly threaten the coral at Scott Reef, with ‘potential for near total coral mortality in the worst affected areas’; a severe spill could also harm coral at Seringapatam Reef and the Rowley Shoals.
- ‘Significantly impact’ the plankton, seagrass and macroalgae that support the entire food chain.
- ‘Significantly impact bird species, including protected species’, which are ‘particularly vulnerable’ to oil spills.
A spill would not only threaten birds at Scott Reef, but those that nest or breed at Ashmore Reef and Cartier Island, Browse Island, islands along the Kimberley coastline (such as the Lacepede Islands) and Rowley Shoals. Woodside’s oil spill modelling specifically notes the potential risk to thirteen species of seabirds.
Oil spills also threaten whales and other cetaceans, especially concentrations of oil on the surface of the water. This can cause ‘sublethal and lethal effects’, especially when feeding, as whales and other marine mammals have been found to aspirate oil when breathing through an oil slick at the sea surface, thus absorbing hydrocarbons directly into their lungs, leading to sublethal and lethal impacts.
According to Woodside’s modelling, a Browse oil spill could be particularly harmful to the spinner dolphins living at Scott Reef with the potential for ‘a significant portion of this local population to be impacted in the event of a worst-case hydrocarbon spill’.
Marine reptiles, including the green sea turtles found at Scott Reef, are also at risk. Woodside’s modelling warns that an oil spill could cause ‘significant mortality amongst adults and hatchlings’, leading to ‘the potential for longer-term impacts on the Scott Reef – Browse Island genetic stock of green turtles’. Further, an oil spill could have lasting impacts on the breeding populations of olive ridley turtles, flatback turtles and hawksbill turtles. Essentially, all marine life found at or near the sea surface could be impacted by such a spill.
Woodside cannot be trusted
In Woodside’s inadequate response plan, Woodside states that it considers an oil spill to be ‘highly unlikely’ and the threat to the environment and wildlife to be ‘acceptable’. We do not believe these are credible assertions. For instance, the WA Environmental Protection Authority (EPA), which is assessing Woodside’s Browse to NWS proposal, did not agree. In August 2024, it emerged that the EPA advised Woodside that its Browse development posed ‘unacceptable’ risks to WA’s environment.
A potential oil spill from the Torosa field was one of the risks cited by the EPA in its preliminary decision not to approve the project. Woodside has subsequently revised its plans to drill for gas at Scott Reef, proposing to use unproven new technology that the company claims would bring a spill under control more quickly, reducing the spill time from 77 days to 13 days.
However, an independent assessment commissioned by Woodside did not support these claims. Instead, the expert questioned whether the piece of equipment proposed by Woodside — a capping stack — could be deployed in practice, and the time it would likely take to do so.
While Woodside has also claimed that a ‘pyrotechnic shear ram’ would reduce the spill time to as little as 24 hours, the company’s expert noted that this had yet to be ‘used in anger’ and that ‘there remains a risk’ that it fails to function.
Woodside’s alarming track record
Woodside’s stated ability to prevent or control a disaster is undercut by its poor environmental and safety track record. There have been numerous incidents at Woodside’s facilities over the last decade threatening the safety of its workers and the environment. These include:
- Whale calf collision: In August 2023, a tugboat operated by a Woodside contractor hit a whale calf in the Port of Dampier. The incident was only confirmed by the Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions (DBCA) after media inquiries.
- Explosion at Pluto LNG plant: In May 2023, an explosion forced Woodside to shut down and evacuate its Pluto LNG facility. Woodside was accused by unions of downplaying the incident. Eighteen months later, Woodside was again forced to put Pluto LNG into an emergency shutdown after the control systems failed.
- Oil spill near Ningaloo: In May 2025, Woodside spilled 16,000 litres of ‘hydrocarbons’ into the ocean near World Heritage listed Ningaloo Reef while decommissioning its Griffin facility. Three months later, the government regulator ordered Woodside to stop decommissioning operations at Griffin and nearby Stybarrow following a series of ‘preventable health and safety incidents’ at both sites.
- Oil spill in Cossack field: In 2016, a Woodside oil rig in the Cossack field leaked over 10,500 litres of oil into the ocean due to a degraded seal.
- Northern Endeavour clean-up debacle: Woodside evaded a $362 million decommissioning bill for its Northern Endeavour oil platform in the Timor Sea by offloading it onto a one-person operation. When the buyer went bankrupt, the Federal Government had to step in, eventually putting a levy on offshore oil and gas companies to recover the clean up costs.
- Cost-cutting and corrosion: In 2021, Woodside announced a 30% cut in operating costs, focusing on maintenance, despite repeated warnings from the government regulator about corrosion at its oil and gas facilities. The warnings continued. In July 2023, the regulator blamed Woodside’s ‘inadequate maintenance’ for serious corrosion of the flare bridge and support structure at its North Rankin complex.
- Abandoned infrastructure: Woodside finished extracting oil from the Enfield field in 2018. In 2019, the government regulator ordered Woodside to remove the Nganhurra Riser Turret Mooring (RTM), an 83-metre-long, 2,452 tonne piece of infrastructure. Woodside instead tried to sink the RTM near the World Heritage-listed Ningaloo Reef. After a public outcry, Woodside finally removed the RTM in October 2023.
A lasting legacy for our oceans: Save Scott Reef from Woodside’s pollution
Woodside’s Browse proposal to drill for oil and gas presents unacceptable risks to Scott Reef and the web of life it supports from Western Australia to Indonesia.
Greenpeace Australia Pacific and Environs Kimberley are calling on the WA and Federal Governments to save Scott Reef by rejecting Woodside’s Browse project once and for all.
What you can do
Together, we still have the power to stop Woodside and save Scott Reef.
You can help by:
- Sending an email to Environment Minister Murray Watt and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, calling on them to reject Browse.
- Sharing this story to help more Australians understand what’s at stake.
- Encouraging your friends and family to take action.
Analysis by Greenpeace and Environs Kimberley shows that a severe oil spill at Scott Reef could be the worst in Australian history — Woodside has labeled the impact of such a spill ‘catastrophic’. According to the fossil fuel company the impacts to Scott Reef ‘would likely be severe and potentially irreversible’. Oily pollution could reach as far as the Kimberley coast to the coasts of Indonesia and Timor Leste while endangered marine species live, breed, forage and migrate within the potential disaster zone: whales, seabirds, turtles and other marine life are all at risk.
Woodside’s Browse drilling plans at Scott Reef have been found to pose unacceptable risks to the Western Australian environment once before. To secure their approvals under Federal and Western Australian law, Woodside has modelled a number of possible oil spill scenarios that could result from the Browse project.
GPAP illustration of a ‘worst case’ senario oil spill based on Woodside’s own modeling.
Key Findings
- The most severe Browse scenario would be the worst oil spill in Australian history – up to 30 times bigger than the 2009 Montara oil spill disaster. According to Woodside, the environmental impact of such a spill would be ‘catastrophic’.
- Scott Reef and Sandy Islet could be covered in oily pollution. Woodside has conceded that the impacts to Scott Reef from a major spill ‘would likely be severe and potentially irreversible’.
- A blowout of this scale could see oil washing up on the Western Australian Kimberley Coast, and affect at least nine marine parks, eight reefs, three Indigenous Protected Areas, and several islands in Australian, Indonesian and Timor Leste waters.
- Endangered and vulnerable marine species live, breed, forage and migrate within the potential disaster zone: whales, seabirds, turtles and other marine life are all at risk.
- A Browse oil spill threatens important tourism, diving, surfing and fishing hotspots, with potential ‘long term impacts’ for tourism operators in the Kimberley or visiting Rowley Shoals or Scott Reef.
Browse and Montara: Location and extent in the Timor Sea: GPAP illustration based on maps from ‘The Montara Oil Spill: A 2009 Well Blowout in the Timor Sea’ and a Browse loss of well containment.
Scott Reef: An ancient oceanic reef system
Scott Reef, located around 270 kilometres off the Western Australian Kimberley coast, is one of Australia’s largest oceanic reef systems. Ancient Scott Reef has been thriving for 15 million years, having adapted to changing seas. Today, it is a haven for marine life, providing vital habitat for more than a thousand species, including corals, fish, sharks and rays.
The deep waters surrounding the reef are home to 29 known species of whale and dolphin, including endangered pygmy blue whales, which travel along the Western Australian coast and stop at Scott Reef during their annual migration to forage and feed. The dusky sea snake, also classified as endangered, lives at Scott Reef. Sandy Islet, part of Scott Reef, is a nesting ground for a small population of genetically distinct green sea turtles, a species classified as vulnerable.
If Woodside, Australia’s largest oil and gas company, were to gain approval to drill for gas at Scott Reef, the ecosystem would face a barrage of industrial impacts, including seismic blasting, gas flaring, underwater noise, artificial lighting, pipe- laying, and fast-moving vessels over years of construction and operation. Add to that the risk of a major oil spill that could be Australia’s worst environmental disaster, with consequences spreading far beyond Scott Reef.
GPAP illustration of drilling sights at Scott Reef.
A disaster worse than Montara, according to Woodside itself
Woodside has proposed drilling 50 new wells around Scott Reef to extract oil and gas from beneath the reef as part of the Browse project. Woodside has proposed to build a 900-kilometre-long undersea pipeline to connect the Scott Reef-Browse site with its North West Shelf facility at Karratha in Western Australia, where the gas would be processed, mostly for international export. Woodside has modelled a number of possible oil spill scenarios that could result from the Browse project. Woodside performed this modelling to comply with mandatory environmental impact assessment requirements under Federal and Western Australian laws.
To identify which areas are at risk of an oil spill from the Browse project, Woodside engaged experts to conduct probabilistic modelling. Experts simulated different spills, noting which locations would be contaminated by oil and how much oil would make it to shore. They also assessed how likely each location was to be affected.
” Woodside’s ‘worst case’ scenario is a blowout at the Torosa gasfield, directly under Scott Reef.”
Greenpeace Australia Pacific and Environs Kimberley’s analysis shows an oil spill at Torosa could see 893,739 barrels of condensate spilled into the Timor Sea. This would be up to 30 times bigger than the 2009 Montara oil spill, considered one of Australia’s worst environmental disasters. Oil leaked into the Timor Sea for days after an oil rig caught fire off the Western Australian coast, causing a 90,000 square kilometre oil slick that spread all the way to Indonesia.
People, places and wildlife at risk
Woodside’s modelling shows that an oil spill at Scott Reef could affect eight reefs, at least nine marine parks and three Indigenous Protected Areas. In the event of a worst-case oil spill, Scott Reef and Sandy Islet, being closest to the wellhead, would be worst affected.
Woodside’s modelling finds that the impacts to Scott Reef from a major spill like this ‘would likely be severe and potentially irreversible’. The impacts of an oil spill are not confined to Scott Reef – according to Woodside’s modelling, ‘hydrocarbon spills resulting from the proposed Browse to NWS Project have the potential to significantly impact shoreline habitats at Scott Reef, Ashmore Reef, Cartier Island and Rowley Shoals.’
Oil from a blowout could also reach neighbouring countries, including Pulau Rote, Savu, Sumba and West Timor in Indonesia, and Timor Leste. This is not an exhaustive list of all places that could be affected by an oil spill at Scott Reef. Once oil hits the water, its spread is influenced by the wind, tides, currents and other external conditions. An oil spill from the Browse project could have a less or more severe impact than the modelling indicates. Equally, Woodside cannot rule out other sites being affected.
A disaster for marine life
Woodside’s oil spill modelling shows that a blowout from the Browse project would put whales, turtles, seabirds, coral, significant feedstocks such as plankton and seagrass, fish, dolphins and other marine life at risk. According to Woodside, a Browse oil spill would:
- Directly threaten the coral at Scott Reef, with ‘potential for near total coral mortality in the worst affected areas’; a severe spill could also harm coral at Seringapatam Reef and the Rowley Shoals.
- ‘Significantly impact’ the plankton, seagrass and macroalgae that support the entire food chain.
- ‘Significantly impact bird species, including protected species’, which are ‘particularly vulnerable’ to oil spills.
A spill would not only threaten birds at Scott Reef, but those that nest or breed at Ashmore Reef and Cartier Island, Browse Island, islands along the Kimberley coastline (such as the Lacepede Islands) and Rowley Shoals. Woodside’s oil spill modelling specifically notes the potential risk to thirteen species of seabirds.
Oil spills also threaten whales and other cetaceans, especially concentrations of oil on the surface of the water. This can cause ‘sublethal and lethal effects’, especially when feeding, as whales and other marine mammals have been found to aspirate oil when breathing through an oil slick at the sea surface, thus absorbing hydrocarbons directly into their lungs, leading to sublethal and lethal impacts.
According to Woodside’s modelling, a Browse oil spill could be particularly harmful to the spinner dolphins living at Scott Reef with the potential for ‘a significant portion of this local population to be impacted in the event of a worst-case hydrocarbon spill’.
Marine reptiles, including the green sea turtles found at Scott Reef, are also at risk. Woodside’s modelling warns that an oil spill could cause ‘significant mortality amongst adults and hatchlings’, leading to ‘the potential for longer-term impacts on the Scott Reef – Browse Island genetic stock of green turtles’. Further, an oil spill could have lasting impacts on the breeding populations of olive ridley turtles, flatback turtles and hawksbill turtles. Essentially, all marine life found at or near the sea surface could be impacted by such a spill.
GPAP illustration of pygmy blue whale and humpback whale migration path through Scott Reef and a ‘worst case’ oil spill senario based on Woodside’s own modeling.
Woodside cannot be trusted
In Woodside’s inadequate response plan, Woodside states that it considers an oil spill to be ‘highly unlikely’ and the threat to the environment and wildlife to be ‘acceptable’. We do not believe these are credible assertions. For instance, the WA Environmental Protection Authority (EPA), which is assessing Woodside’s Browse to NWS proposal, did not agree. In August 2024, it emerged that the EPA advised Woodside that its Browse development posed ‘unacceptable’ risks to WA’s environment.
A potential oil spill from the Torosa field was one of the risks cited by the EPA in its preliminary decision not to approve the project. Woodside has subsequently revised its plans to drill for gas at Scott Reef, proposing to use unproven new technology that the company claims would bring a spill under control more quickly, reducing the spill time from 77 days to 13 days.
However, an independent assessment commissioned by Woodside did not support these claims. Instead, the expert questioned whether the piece of equipment proposed by Woodside — a capping stack — could be deployed in practice, and the time it would likely take to do so.
While Woodside has also claimed that a ‘pyrotechnic shear ram’ would reduce the spill time to as little as 24 hours, the company’s expert noted that this had yet to be ‘used in anger’ and that ‘there remains a risk’ that it fails to function.
Woodside’s alarming track record
Woodside’s stated ability to prevent or control a disaster is undercut by its poor environmental and safety track record. There have been numerous incidents at Woodside’s facilities over the last decade threatening the safety of its workers and the environment. These include:
- Whale calf collision: In August 2023, a tugboat operated by a Woodside contractor hit a whale calf in the Port of Dampier. The incident was only confirmed by the Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions (DBCA) after media inquiries.
- Explosion at Pluto LNG plant: In May 2023, an explosion forced Woodside to shut down and evacuate its Pluto LNG facility. Woodside was accused by unions of downplaying the incident. Eighteen months later, Woodside was again forced to put Pluto LNG into an emergency shutdown after the control systems failed.
- Oil spill near Ningaloo: In May 2025, Woodside spilled 16,000 litres of ‘hydrocarbons’ into the ocean near World Heritage listed Ningaloo Reef while decommissioning its Griffin facility. Three months later, the government regulator ordered Woodside to stop decommissioning operations at Griffin and nearby Stybarrow following a series of ‘preventable health and safety incidents’ at both sites.
- Oil spill in Cossack field: In 2016, a Woodside oil rig in the Cossack field leaked over 10,500 litres of oil into the ocean due to a degraded seal.
- Northern Endeavour clean-up debacle: Woodside evaded a $362 million decommissioning bill for its Northern Endeavour oil platform in the Timor Sea by offloading it onto a one-person operation. When the buyer went bankrupt, the Federal Government had to step in, eventually putting a levy on offshore oil and gas companies to recover the clean up costs.
- Cost-cutting and corrosion: In 2021, Woodside announced a 30% cut in operating costs, focusing on maintenance, despite repeated warnings from the government regulator about corrosion at its oil and gas facilities. The warnings continued. In July 2023, the regulator blamed Woodside’s ‘inadequate maintenance’ for serious corrosion of the flare bridge and support structure at its North Rankin complex.
- Abandoned infrastructure: Woodside finished extracting oil from the Enfield field in 2018. In 2019, the government regulator ordered Woodside to remove the Nganhurra Riser Turret Mooring (RTM), an 83-metre-long, 2,452 tonne piece of infrastructure. Woodside instead tried to sink the RTM near the World Heritage-listed Ningaloo Reef. After a public outcry, Woodside finally removed the RTM in October 2023.
A lasting legacy for our oceans: Save Scott Reef from Woodside’s pollution
Woodside’s Browse proposal to drill for oil and gas presents unacceptable risks to Scott Reef and the web of life it supports from Western Australia to Indonesia.
Greenpeace Australia Pacific and Environs Kimberley are calling on the WA and Federal Governments to save Scott Reef by rejecting Woodside’s Browse project once and for all.
What you can do
Together, we still have the power to stop Woodside and save Scott Reef.
You can help by:
- Sending an email to Environment Minister Murray Watt and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, calling on them to reject Browse.
- Sharing this story to help more Australians understand what’s at stake.
- Encouraging your friends and family to take action.
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