Australia is one of the world’s largest exporters of coal – the number one cause of climate change. Right now, corporations are planning to dig more new coal projects in Australia than anywhere else on the planet.
It doesn’t matter where Australia’s coal is burned, people everywhere are facing the impacts here and now, with catastrophic floods, bushfires, heat waves, droughts, and more extreme weather events.
Coal corporations plan to dig almost half the world’s new proposed coal projects for export right here in Australia – that’s more than anywhere else on the planet.
Right now, there are69 proposed new coal projects across NSW and QLD. These include some entirely new coal mines, and many expansions of existing coal mines.
As part of this expansion, Whitehaven Coal, one of Australia’s biggest coal producers, is planning to DOUBLE its coal production with four dangerous new coal projects.
Currently, Australia’s federal environment laws do not require the Environment Minister to consider climate impacts when approving new coal projects – despite climate change being the greatest and most urgent threat to our natural environment. But 100 scientists are calling for these laws to be changed.
The world’s scientists have warned that all coal expansion must stop immediately to avoid runaway global heating. If we want a chance at a liveable world, all 69 of Australia’s new coal projects must be scrapped.
Anjali Sharma, lead litigant in the court challenge involving the Vickery coal expansion and law student said: “With the record-breaking profits it has raked in over the past year, Whitehaven Coal was in the best position to plan a coal phase out, rehabilitate its mine voids, and look after its workers. Instead its chosen to pour more fuel on the climate crisis and to destroy the future of every young person who will now experience worse bushfires, droughts, heatwaves, storms and sea-level rise thanks to this dirty coal project.”
“Young people are looking to the new Government and specifically to Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek to stand up for them by refusing all new coal and gas proposals currently seeking approval. Minister Plibersek, show us you are listening to the science and that you do care for young people unlike the former Environment Minister by saying no to new fossil fuel projects.”
Fahimah Badrulhisham from the Australian Religious Response to Climate Change said: “This move sends a message to other Whitehaven investors that it’s time to cut ties with this company. Whitehaven is ploughing ahead with Vickery its climate-destroying coal project and is evidently willing and able to fund this themselves. National Australia Bank proudly proclaims their climate ambitions but they are risking their reputation by continuing to fund coal companies that are accelerating the climate crisis. To retain any credibility at all, NAB must immediately rule out further financing of Whitehaven Coal.
“From a Muslim perspective, the extraction of coal upsets the balance of the ecosystem which we have been entrusted to safeguard for all living creatures and future generations. Scientists, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the International Energy Agency, and the global community all agree that we can’t dig and burn more coal if we want to keep global warming at safe levels. The IPCC just released a ‘final warning’ on climate change in their sixth assessment report, and Whitehaven’s response is to plough ahead with development of this new climate-wrecking mine.
Source- https://www.movebeyondcoal.com/
