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Environment

“They Profit, We Pay the Price”: Gas giants cash in while communities shoulder the costs of climate disasters

Greenpeace Australia Pacific 2 mins read

SYDNEY, Tuesday 24 February 2026 —  Greenpeace Australia Pacific has slammed multinational gas corporations, including Australia-based Woodside, for boasting another year of massive profits, while communities across Australia battle through a summer of bushfires, flash-flooding, storms and record-breaking heat. 

While gas corporations including Woodside, Santos, and ConocoPhillips continue to profit off Australian gas, communities around Australia pay the price with higher bills and climate damage.


In the past year alone, gas corporations recorded the following profits: 

Extreme weather events in Australia in 2025 cost almost $3.5 Billion in insured losses from 264,000 claims, according to the Insurance Council of Australia.

Solaye Snider, Climate Campaigner at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, said: “It’s obscene that gas companies like Woodside and Santos are celebrating these absurd profits, while communities across Australia battle through a summer of bushfires, flash-flooding, storms and record-breaking heat.

“In Australia, the Pacific and around the world, everyday people are paying the ultimate price for the gas industry’s greed, as disasters become more frequent and severe, and energy prices continue to soar.

“In 2025 alone, extreme weather events cost Australian communities almost $3.5 billion — and that figure is expected to climb to $35.2 billion a year by 2050. These aren’t abstract numbers. This is people’s homes, lives and livelihoods. 

“Drilling for more gas helps nobody’s hip pocket except the multinational gas companies themselves. They keep making more money, meanwhile consumer gas prices and the cost of climate change continue to endlessly and needlessly rise. They profit, we pay the price.

“Fossil fuel polluters must be forced to pay for the climate destruction they are inflicting on communities in Australia, the Pacific and around the world.”

-ENDS-

New footage and images for media use available in the Greenpeace Media Library:
Bushfire impacts on native animals and landscape in Victoria, Australia
Aerial footage of offshore gas infrastructure in Victoria, Australia


Contact details:

Lucy Keller on 0491 135 308 or lucy.keller@greenpeace.org

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