Dear Tanya Plibersek,

This is an open letter from the people of WA and wider Australia urgently calling on you not to approve Woodside’s North West Shelf expansion. Environmental activists and community groups in Western Australia have been campaigning for years against Woodside's gigantic and environmentally destructive gas projects in the Pilbara known collectively as Burrup Hub.

As environmental minister, you presumably understand that the protection of the environment is not merely an aesthetic desire - it is the protection of the fragile ecosystem that ultimately supports human life and wellbeing, Country and First Nations cultural heritage. Protection of the environment is the protection of people.

The expansion of Woodsides North West Shelf solidifies the continuation of the climate bomb that is Burrup hub into 2070.

This will result in disaster for the people of WA, wider Australia, and global efforts to mitigate the effects of climate change.

The emissions of the Northwest Shelf and Burrup hub as a whole pose an existential threat to the over 60,000 year old Murujuga rock art - significant and sacred pieces of First Nation peoples history and culture - that is at risk of being damaged and eroded by chemicals released from the nearby projects.

Burrup Hub is Australia's most polluting industrial project, and it is estimated that the continuation of the North West Shelf into 2070 would emit nearly 4.4 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide.

Summers in WA are getting hotter and hotter and conditions are becoming unliveable - in particular for those living in northern rural communities such as the Pilbara. We are all signing this amidst the unbearable heat of this summer - pleading with you. The last thing WA needs is a continued investment in fossil fuels.

Under Labor’s (and even Woodsides) current climate rhetoric, gas has been positioned as a “transition fuel” to aid Australia’s turn towards renewable energy.

Surely there is nothing “transitional” in the approval of a gas project for almost 50 more years.

We are begging you to do the right thing.

Be a champion for people and communities- not a select few CEOs and industry.

Signed,