Shocked, Shocked! BHP - World's Biggest Mining Company - Shitcans Its Loudly Publicized Climate Plan

The world’s biggest miner has halted or delayed projects to cut vast amounts of emissions and has quietly war-gamed options to push major climate investments in its Western Australian iron ore operations into the next two decades, internal documents show.

An exclusive investigation based on documents leaked to the Guardian and the ABC’s Four Corners can reveal that BHP, one of Australia’s biggest historic emitters, has dumped plans for a facility that could have significantly reduced emissions and has put on ice renewable projects designed to power its iron ore operations in the vast, resource-rich Pilbara region.The cache of leaked internal records, dubbed the BHP files, reveals that the company was aware delayed climate action in the Pilbara would pose a “reputational risk” and that “urgent decarbonisation in line with BHP’s public commitments” effectively underpinned its “licence to operate”.

Despite the warnings, it announced a slowdown of its decarbonisation program last year, slashing spending and putting off meaningful investment until the 2030s at the earliest. It did so in the face of overwhelming shareholder support for urgent climate action and board approval of a key solar project.

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BHP quietly dumped an iron ore processing plant that could have prevented 1.7m tonnes of emissions a year, the equivalent of taking more than 350,000 cars off the road. This was despite describing it as “well-aligned” with its climate transition action plan, which shareholders voted overwhelmingly in favour of, and its stated decarbonisation targets. The company initially planned to replace its fleet of diesel trucks – one of the biggest sources of BHP’s emissions – with electric ones beginning in 2027-28 but documents show it has continued to acquire polluting diesel haulage trucks for long-term use, including a purchase of more than $500m for new diesel trucks at Jimblebar. Public documents also suggest it is planning to use diesel trucks at a proposed new mine at Ministers North.

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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/may/25/bhp-files-leak-mining-company-climate-action