BHP defies its own climate strategy to spend hundreds of millions on polluting diesel trucks in Pilbara

BHP has continued to spend hundreds of millions of dollars buying diesel trucks in the Pilbara despite internal documents suggesting it would increase emissions and be “misaligned” with its decarbonisation goals. The mining giant is Australia’s biggest consumer of diesel and trucks are its biggest single source of diesel emissions. Replacing the fleet with battery-electric trucks is considered a critical step in the multinational’s efforts to decarbonise. The company had planned to begin trialling electric trucks in Western Australia in 2024 and to begin rolling them out in 2027-28. But an exclusive investigation based on documents leaked to the Guardian and Four Corners can reveal that, far from embracing electric trucks, BHP has continued to buy polluting diesel trucks for its Jimblebar mine. It also plans to use diesel trucks at a proposed new mine. Public documents for Ministers North, a planned mine roughly 85km north-west of the town of Newman, show the mining giant is planning to use diesel trucks and expects they will account for most of its direct emissions at the site. “The largest source of [direct greenhouse gas] emissions is associated with diesel consumed by heavy haulage and ancillary equipment,” the company told the Environmental Protection Authority of Western Australia last year. The documents suggest BHP expects the mine to be operational until at least 2041. …