The head of the Western Australian Museum has told staff that burning fossil fuels is something “almost all of us are guilty of in one way or another” in an email defending the institution’s renewed research partnership with Woodside.
The museum’s chief executive, Alec Coles, sent the email to staff before a Woodside-sponsored August open day at the Maritime Museum – one of WA Museum’s seven locations. It came amid public criticism of the extension of the “longstanding collaboration”, in which the gas company supports the museum’s biodiversity research along the WA coastline.
Woodside had launched an advertising blitz celebrating the continuation of the deal for a further five years, as the state reeled from a record-breaking marine heatwave that killed corals over a 1,500km stretch of ocean.
Climate advocates criticised Coles’s email, with Bill Hare, a renowned WA-based climate scientist saying it was “disturbing” it contained “absolutely no expression of alarm or concern about the catastrophic bleaching of Western coral reefs, which is driven by fossil fuel emissions causing marine heatwaves”.
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Coles wrote to staff before a protest organised by climate activist groups for the open day, acknowledging staff might want to know more “or even be uneasy about our relationship with Woodside, given recent negative coverage” of the company’s plans at Murujuga, including the provisionally approved extension of its North West Shelf processing plant to 2070.
Coles said he guessed many within the museum saw the climate crisis “as one of the greatest existential threats, if not the greatest, facing our planet”, adding that it could only be addressed if “we understand the environment and the effects that human activity can have upon it”.
He wrote Woodside had for 28 years supported the museum “to do just that by funding extensive marine biodiversity studies” that had contributed to an “extraordinary level of knowledge” about the region’s coastal species and ecosystems.
“Obviously, if you accept the threat of human-induced climate change, which I suspect most people do, then burning fossil fuels is clearly a contributing factor, something, regrettably, almost all of us are guilty of in one way or another,” Coles wrote.
“Arguments about the need, or not, for extended gas supplies are polarised, but what is pretty clear is that we cannot switch off fossil fuels overnight as there is no existing adequate replacement capacity.”
Whether or not there was a need to continue gas production to 2070, he added, was something that “I, like most people, am not well enough qualified to comment on with any authority”.
The WA Greens fossil fuels and climate action spokesperson, Sophie McNeill, who received a copy of the email, expressed concern that after the museum’s signing of a deal with the state’s biggest emitter, Coles’s email appeared to “put that climate guilt back on his employees” by focusing on their personal fossil fuel use.
McNeill said that it was “shocking” for the museum head to say he was not qualified to comment on climate science and continued gas production while considering whether to extend a sponsorship from a major fossil fuel company.
“He is the boss of hundreds of scientists and science educators,” she said. “It is completely pathetic for him not to be fully informed on the latest climate science.”
Coles wrote in his email that the museum supported people’s right to protest peacefully at the open day and did not expect staff or volunteers to defend the museum’s decision, then sharing its public statement in response to criticism, which emphasised that “engaging constructively and transparently with industry” allowed WA Museum to expand knowledge of the state’s ecosystems.
“Ultimately our intentions are just the same as the protestors: we want to save the planet. We just have different methods and different approaches,” Coles wrote.
He told staff it was largely industry funding that made the museum’s research possible, and said the world-recognised and peer-reviewed work of the museum’s scientists was “never influenced by financial, political or ideological interests”.
In a statement to Guardian Australia, a museum spokesperson reiterated this position, saying the museum “remains independent, science-led, and committed to the people and the environment of Western Australia”.
They said the museum relied on “a diverse range of funding sources – including government, competitive research grants, philanthropic contributions, and corporate support” and that Woodside’s contributions had enabled scientists to survey “over half-a-million square kilometres of the Indian Ocean, leading to the discovery of no less than 700 species of animals and plants previously unknown to science”.
Hare, however, said it was “a matter for serious concern that the head of a science based body is not aware of the science of climate change and how it is to be combated”.
He said everyone in the field knew the International Energy Agency position that no new fossil fuel resources should be developed if the world is to limit warming to 1.5C as set out in the Paris agreement.
“It’s just basic logic extending a massive gas plant owned by Woodside until 2070 is completely inconsistent with that,” Hare said.
The executive director of the Conservation Council of WA, Matt Roberts, said his organisation (which protested in August) acknowledged the “critical” importance of funding research, “but not when it’s a cynical exercise designed to buy social licence for one of Australia’s biggest polluters”.
Woodside declined to comment.
In a statement in August, the company said its ongoing collaboration with the museum had “significantly increased understanding of the marine environment of Western Australia”.
