Coal Stacker – Newcastle Australia. The world’s largest coal port. Photo by: Bigstock.
An Australian court last week ruled that climate change was not reason enough to halt the $6.3 billion Wandoan coal mine in Australia in a landmark case. Swiss coal mining company Xstrata succeeded in defeating a challenge from the environmental NGO Friends of the Earth and local farmers, which argued that the mine should be halted due to its resulting carbon emissions.
“It is difficult to see from the evidence that this project will cause any relevant impact on the environment,” Carmel MacDonald head of the Land Court of Queensland ruled. The court cited arguments by Xstrata that if the company did not exploit the coal at the Wandoan mine, coal would be exploited elsewhere to fill global demand.
The court further argued that the economic benefits of exploiting the coal field outweighed environmental harm. Total greenhouse gas emissions of the Wandoan coal mine could eventually equal 0.17 percent of the world’s total emissions. The Wandoan mine will begin by producing 23 million tons a year and moving up to 63 million tons. Xstrata recently signed a deal with Japan to supply the country with coal.
Australia is the world’s largest exporter of coal, sending over half the coal mined in the country abroad.
Coal is the world’s most carbon intensive fuel. A recent study found that if the world’s coal reserves are burnt it would raise global temperatures by 14.8 degrees Celsius (26.6 degrees Fahrenheit), essentially leading to a climate doomsday scenario. To date, global temperatures have risen about 0.8 degrees Celsius (1.44 degrees Fahrenheit) since the beginning of the 1900s.
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