The revelation that super funds plunged $25 billion into the development of coal and gas is just the first step, the setting of the scene. Little mention is made of the fact that they also fund about 10 per cent of green energy developments, but perhaps that’s just a salve.

However, this is the battleground for the next stage of the struggle and this is the way it will be for fossil fuel projects. They will have to justify not only any new project but the continued existence of the industry itself, not just once but every day.

It will be a two-pronged battle, we are seeing the groundwork now.

First will be the full-frontal assault on the funding and the companies behind it, which we have already seen. The second attack will be on the people, the company bosses, shareholders and backers. This has been attempted before with limited success, but green groups are getting better at what they do, much better.

They have learnt from the Adani battle that they can take on the financiers, the insurance companies, the contractors.

This is where it has become a personal issue for the Queensland Resources Council chief executive Ian Macfarlane, who is facing his own existential crisis with activist investors aiming to get him turfed from the board of Woodside, a job he has held since 2016.

Macfarlane’s post-politics career has coincided with a deep cultural and political change in Queensland and Australia. In the ebb and flow of power, coal and gas are definitely in the ebb stage and paying a huge cost for it.

And what is happening now to Macfarlane and others is an example, if one was needed, of how the war will be waged on both a personal and corporate front. If the activists fail this time, they’ve shown they won’t be diverted.

For both sides, it is a fight for survival.

The Australasian Centre for Corporate Responsibility has kicked off the campaign to unseat Macfarlane and two other Woodside board members over what it claims is the repeated failure of the company to come up with a credible climate change strategy.

Proxy adviser Glass Lewis, Legal and General, Vision Super and Betashares have lined up against Macfarlane and the others at the 2023 AGM on April 28.

We’ve seen how this can work. EML is another company that has been targeted by activist investors and pressured to reform. We have yet to see how that pans out.

ACCR points out that at its 2022 AGM, Woodside received the lowest recorded vote for a Climate Transition Action Plan since the inception of the Say on Climate mechanism, with 49 per cent of votes cast against the 2021 Climate Report.

“Woodside has repeatedly failed to respond to material shareholder votes around climate risk management, raising genuine governance concerns,’’ ACCR said.

“Woodside’s lack of responsiveness to shareholders on these risks warrants a vote against Ian Macfarlane, who has been a member of the company’s Sustainability Committee for the duration of his tenure.

“Whilst Woodside is producing record returns in today’s high commodity price environment, these persistent investor concerns relate to how the company is positioning for value creation in a net zero economy.’’

The problem for Woodside is that it is unlikely to get any open support. Certainly not from politicians.

It adds to a tough couple of years for Macfarlane who joined Woodside at the same time as he was called out of retirement to take the QRC job.

Both sides of politics have abandoned the lobby which has been shown in how Labor sidelined the QRC during the coal royalties issue and didn’t even consult the organisation. The LNP is too busy chasing ambulances to come to its aid.

As Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said: when you change the Government, you change the country. It’s clear we are seeing that now.