Living Wonders Climate Cases
Last month, the Federal Court of Australia dismissed the Living Wonders cases, in which the Environment Council of Central Queensland brought two landmark climate cases arguing that the Federal environment Minister has interpreted the law in a way that is stopping her from scrutinising the climate harm of new coal and gas projects.
The two massive coalmines at the centre of the Living Wonders cases, Whitehaven's Narrabri expansion and MACH Energy Australia's Mount Pleasant Optimisation Project, will produce a combined total of 1.3 billion tonnes of lifetime emissions, which is equivalent to running an average coal power station for 194 years.
Right now there are 12 new coal expansion proposals up for approval, with another two waiting in the wings here in New South Wales, which, combined, will emit more than two billion tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions over their lifetimes. The World Meteorological Organization warns the final months of 2023 and the beginning of 2024 are projected to mark Australia's hottest year on record. With an El Niño, the return of dry conditions will be intensified, testing the capacity of our communities, our natural areas and our wildlife to withstand increasingly severe and unpredictable fires this summer. These events are happening because of successive governments' ongoing approval of new coalmines and their refusal to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions in line with what the science says is needed to keep our climate safe. It was bad enough 15 years, even five years ago, but it is worse now, after New South Wales experienced the Black Summer bushfires; after we experienced those devastating floods; and as communities are still recovering, still traumatised, still awaiting government assistance to live a semblance of a normal life after those catastrophic events.
For governments to support new projects for coal and gas in 2023 is criminal. Following the approval of the Mount Pleasant expansion project last year, Mount Pleasant will become this State's largest open-cut coalmine. But residents of Denman, Aberdeen, Muswellbrook and Scone who live with the pollution from the coalmine continue their fight for justice, challenging in the Land and Environment Court the Independent Planning Commission's approval of it, due to its impacts on health, the climate and the environment. I thank them profoundly for doing this. The Hunter Valley Operations project is the largest coalmine expansion awaiting approval since the signing of the Paris agreement. Rejecting this massively polluting project would go some way to reassuring the community that this Government understands what climate action looks like. These two coal projects, if they are approved, will negate any target for net zero by 2050.