In July 2025, the Federal Court commenced a 2 day hearing of proceedings brought by the Environmental Defender’s Office (EDO), representing a group called the Doctors for the Environment Australia (DEA), to challenge the validity of NOPSEMA’s acceptance of Woodside’s Production Environment Plan (EP) for its $19.5 billion Scarborough Gas Project, part of the company’s Burrup Hub plan (which we reported on in July).
The DEA argued that NOPSEMA may have accepted the EP without fully understanding and detailing how the impacts from the project’s emissions will be managed. The DEA argued that greenhouse gas emissions were an impact, not a potential impact, and as such, they had to be evaluated against environmental performance outcomes and control measures.
The Federal Court has now dismissed the case holding that it was a matter for NOPSEMA to determine if particular circumstances required the impact from emissions to be detailed and that it was open to the regulator to accept the plan so long as it met the acceptance criteria.
Separately, The Friends of Australian Rock Art (FARA) commenced Supreme Court action against the WA Government and Woodside arguing that the State did not consider the climate impacts of the project, including potential effects on the Murujuga rock art (also mentioned in our July report).
FARA has now also launched legal proceedings in the Federal Court of Australia to challenge the WA and Australian Governments’ approvals of Woodside’s North West Shelf extension.
Earlier this month, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Human Right to a Clean, Healthy and Sustainable Environment, Astrid Puentes Riaño, made an extraordinary application to be heard in the Federal Court proceedings.