Climate change court case

Historic court case seeks to force climate change assessments of new coal mines - 19th September, 2006

Newcastle environmentalist Peter Gray has today lodged a court challenge against the controversial Anvil Hill open-cut coal mine on the grounds that there is no consideration of its climate change impacts. The action was taken after repeated refusals by the state government to consider the climate implications of new coal mine proposals, despite Premier Morris Iemma labelling climate change the greatest threat facing our environment and way of life.

Mr Gray’s legal team will argue that the Director-General (D-G) of the Department of Planning must instruct Centennial Coal – developer of Anvil Hill - to assess the full greenhouse gas emissions from the project, including the huge volumes of carbon dioxide that will be released when the coal is burnt. This will mean rejecting Centennial’s current Environmental Assessment, which does not include a full greenhouse assessment. If approved, Anvil Hill will produce up to 10.5 million tonnes of coal a year which, when burnt, will produce more greenhouse pollution that NSW’s entire transport sector of more than four million vehicles. Yet the greenhouse implications of this are ignored in the Government’s approval process.

Mr Gray said: “The expansion of coal exports from Newcastle Harbour is fuelling climate change which will devastate NSW. Yet the government refuses to consider this when approving new coal mines. Our action today is designed to force the government to take climate change seriously”.

Legal advice obtained by Mr. Gray finds that although there is no specific requirement to include the greenhouse gas emissions consequent from burning the coal produced at the mine and exported from Newcastle, the planning framework implicitly requires this, because of the principles of Ecologically Sustainable Development (ESD) enshrined in the Planning Act via the Protection of the Environment Administration Act.

“On the one hand Premier Iemma warns us about climate change. Yet on the other he allows new coal mines to open with no consideration of the climate change implications of doing so. This must stop,” Mr Gray said.