The oil and gas industry has the potential to drive climate change action but only if it makes a clear break with its coal cousins and cleans up its own production, according to a leading safety researcher in the sector.
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Andrew Hopkins, an emeritus professor at the Australian National University, said it was in the interests of the petroleum industry to argue for a price on carbon given its lower emissions compared with coal.
In a research paper, From climate pariah to climate saviour?, for The Australia Institute, Professor Hopkins said Australian gas producers had been much less outspoken than global peers such as Shell, Total and BP in backing carbon pricing.
"They should be lobbying for a price on carbon and they're certainly not lobbying for a price at all," he said.
"Some of the more-timid companies are saying we don't really want anything until there's a binding international agreement that covers everybody and everything."
The industry lobby group, Australian Petroleum Production & Exploration Association, "says it supports a price on carbon but doesn't do anything about it", he said.
According to APPEA's website, the group supports "an economy-wide transparent price signal" for carbon.
The Turnbull government has pledged to review its climate policies in 2017 as it attempts to steer the economy towards the 2030 emissions target it pledged at the Paris summit late last year.
The appointment of Josh Frydenberg as minister of a combined energy and environment portfolio is widely seen as a recognition the energy sector will have to carry much of the burden in cutting 2005-level emissions as much as 28 per cent by 2030.
Professor Hopkins said gas has a "window" of advantage over coal but how long it will remain open depends on whether fugitive emissions of methane – a much more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide – can contained.
"There's a huge amount of leakage" in the downstream end of the sector, let alone what happens during production, he said. "If they can't keep their leakage under control, they fall flat on their face."
Debate over Australia's energy future has heated up recently amid steep rises in power prices in South Australia. Some have blamed the state's high renewable energy penetration, while others have noted the price of gas has doubled as suppliers such as Origin Energy steer supplies for export.
