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“As far as three-word slogans go,‘gas-led recovery’ was about as useful as ‘no new gas’ when it comes to helping us balance the economic,energy and environmental challenges reality ahead for us and our region,” King said on Tuesday.

“Let me be clear:gas has a role to play in our future,but emissions have to rapidly and permanently come down.”

The only way large-scale fossil fuel can continue while limiting global warming is if a large portion of the resultant carbon pollution is captured and stored.

However,King pointed to recent comments by International Energy Agency director Fatih Birol that it was a “very vital technology,but the story of carbon capture and storage is one of disappointment.”

“Dr Birol is right,its progress is disappointing,but there is no reason to abandon the potential of a technology that is needed to help to get us to net zero,” King said.

The chief source of that disappointment is the world’s largest attempt to bury carbon dioxide at Chevron’s $81 billion Gorgon gas export project in WA.

The US major revealed on Monday the system was still running at just 40 per cent of its design capacity eight years after the start-up of the project.

After more than $3 billion of costs,an additional 2.4 million tonnes of carbon pollution are released every year.

However,King and Birol differed on how much gas should be used in a world trying to achieve net zero emissions by 2050.

Less than a year ago,Birol repeated his call – which King labelled “useless” – for no more new large-scale fossil fuel projects to be built. He said the investments were risky for the climate and investors,as demand for fossil fuels would decline.

Reece Whitby,the Labor energy and environment minister in WA,where most Australian gas exports come from,is as strong a backer of the gas industry and carbon storage as his federal colleagues.

But he warned the industry that they needed to offer more than lip service to climate concerns.

“You face an existential challenge:will you be here after the transition or will you go the way of the dinosaurs and Kodak?” he said.

Woodside chief executive Meg O’Neill told the conference that the gas industry had to better explain the importance of its product in a discussion in which its opponents often used a very emotional narrative.

“If you talk to many young people they will have this simplistic ideology that solar and wind are good,oil and gas are bad,” she said.

“Renewable solar is fantastic,but what happens at night? Oh,you need something else because I like watching TV at night.”

O’Neill said it was clear that the government’s position did not sit well with some in the Labor Party but noted the gas strategy had the backing of senior leaders.

“I think the elegance of the Future Gas Strategy was to really coalesce the Labor Party around a recognition that gas absolutely has to be part of Australia’s energy mix to 2050 and beyond. There are clearly some in Labor that are uncomfortable with this conclusion,but this is a document put out by cabinet with support from the senior leadership in the party.”

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