Extract from The Guardian
The Paris climate deal should be a signal to cut fossil fuel use, rather than an excuse to mine more coal
The Queensland
government is now slamming its foot down on the accelerator to help a
private company build the biggest coalmine Australia has ever seen.
“We can see the end of the tunnel and now we are accelerating towards it,” the state’s mining minister, Anthony Lynham, said.
The massive Adani Carmichael coal project in the state’s Galilee basin has been given “critical” status by the government, in the hope that removing a few bureaucratic hurdles might speed things up a little bit.
What’s at the end of Lynham’s tunnel one can only imagine, but given the climate-changing gases that will come from burning all that coal, we can make a couple of guesses.
Are we being driven headlong, for example, into a concrete wall several metres thick?
Is there a precipitous cliff edge at the end of this dark tunnel, at the bottom of which is a hellish mix of dead coral, flooded cities and discarded soft porn tapes starring Donald Trump?
Lynham’s choice of analogy (or cliché – I’m not sure) works on so many levels to illustrate the attitude of state and federal governments to supporting the further exploitation of coal.
Where would this tunnel lead us, if the rest of the world took the same high speed attitude to liberating fossil fuels as the Queensland government?
The government’s announcement came just days after it was confirmed that the Paris climate agreement to keep global warming “well below 2C” would now enter into force.
By the time representatives from more than 190 countries gather in Marrakech next month for the next major United Nations climate talks, the Paris deal will be active. Approving massive coalmines is not part of the plan.
First, let’s just consider the scale of the Adani project.
In court cases brought to challenge the mine, both Adani and environmental groups have agreed on a set of numbers. The mining, transportation and burning of the coal will emit the equivalent of 4.7 gigatonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere over the life of the mine.
That’s 4,729,988,241 tonnes, to be exact.
Once those gases are in the atmosphere, they remain there for a century or more, helping to increase temperatures, raise sea levels and acidify the oceans.
Adani has successfully argued in court that its mine doesn’t contribute directly to global emissions because the power plants in India would just get their fossil fuel from somewhere else.
In the latest federal court finding, a judge also accepted an argument that international agreements like the one made in Paris would mitigate any greenhouse gas emissions from the mine. The judge wrote:
So, the existence of an international agreement designed to get countries around the world to use less fossil fuels is somehow being used as an excuse for them to use more?
That case, brought by the Australian Conservation Foundation, is being appealed.
Adani has been granted its mining leases and environment approvals on the assumption that the mine will be operating for about 60 years.
Given that we can expect a whole unsavoury suite of climate change impacts in the coming decades, you have to wonder how a coalmine might be viewed in the year 2050, especially one with a license to keep digging for another 20 years.
The Queensland government needs to be pulling on the handbrake and reversing out of this long dark tunnel, for everyone’s sake
“We can see the end of the tunnel and now we are accelerating towards it,” the state’s mining minister, Anthony Lynham, said.
The massive Adani Carmichael coal project in the state’s Galilee basin has been given “critical” status by the government, in the hope that removing a few bureaucratic hurdles might speed things up a little bit.
What’s at the end of Lynham’s tunnel one can only imagine, but given the climate-changing gases that will come from burning all that coal, we can make a couple of guesses.
Are we being driven headlong, for example, into a concrete wall several metres thick?
Is there a precipitous cliff edge at the end of this dark tunnel, at the bottom of which is a hellish mix of dead coral, flooded cities and discarded soft porn tapes starring Donald Trump?
Lynham’s choice of analogy (or cliché – I’m not sure) works on so many levels to illustrate the attitude of state and federal governments to supporting the further exploitation of coal.
Where would this tunnel lead us, if the rest of the world took the same high speed attitude to liberating fossil fuels as the Queensland government?
The government’s announcement came just days after it was confirmed that the Paris climate agreement to keep global warming “well below 2C” would now enter into force.
By the time representatives from more than 190 countries gather in Marrakech next month for the next major United Nations climate talks, the Paris deal will be active. Approving massive coalmines is not part of the plan.
First, let’s just consider the scale of the Adani project.
In court cases brought to challenge the mine, both Adani and environmental groups have agreed on a set of numbers. The mining, transportation and burning of the coal will emit the equivalent of 4.7 gigatonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere over the life of the mine.
That’s 4,729,988,241 tonnes, to be exact.
Once those gases are in the atmosphere, they remain there for a century or more, helping to increase temperatures, raise sea levels and acidify the oceans.
Adani has successfully argued in court that its mine doesn’t contribute directly to global emissions because the power plants in India would just get their fossil fuel from somewhere else.
In the latest federal court finding, a judge also accepted an argument that international agreements like the one made in Paris would mitigate any greenhouse gas emissions from the mine. The judge wrote:
I found that direct and consequential greenhouse gas emissions associated with the [Carmichael mine] will be managed and mitigated through national and international emissions control frameworks operating in Australia and within countries that are the import market for coal from the project.
So, the existence of an international agreement designed to get countries around the world to use less fossil fuels is somehow being used as an excuse for them to use more?
That case, brought by the Australian Conservation Foundation, is being appealed.
Adani has been granted its mining leases and environment approvals on the assumption that the mine will be operating for about 60 years.
Given that we can expect a whole unsavoury suite of climate change impacts in the coming decades, you have to wonder how a coalmine might be viewed in the year 2050, especially one with a license to keep digging for another 20 years.
The Queensland government needs to be pulling on the handbrake and reversing out of this long dark tunnel, for everyone’s sake
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