High Court Voids Coalmine Approval Over Export Emissions — SkimNews
Get the Energy newsletter
Daily energy & climate — solar, EVs, oil, the policy fights and tech bets shaping the transition. Free.
- Australia's High Court ruled 3-2 on Wednesday that the NSW Independent Planning Commission failed to consider conditions to minimize scope 3 emissions when it approved MACH Energy's Mount Pleasant coalmine expansion, invalidating the approval in what was the first time the country's highest court considered climate change.
- Wendy Wales and Tony Lonergan, retired schoolteachers and former Greens candidates, led the four-year legal fight through community group Dams Heg, with Wales saying people initially thought they were "crazy" for taking on "a billion-dollar coal company."
- MACH Energy's proposed expansion would have doubled the mine's coal output to 21 million tonnes a year until 2048, and 98% of its projected emissions were scope 3 emissions from coal burned overseas after export.
- Elaine Johnson, director of Johnson Legal which represented Dams Heg, said the decision confirms Australian governments must take responsibility for emissions from coal exports, noting Australia is the world's second-largest coal exporter.
- NSW Greens climate spokesperson Sue Higginson said the ruling "exposed the New South Wales coal approval process for the sham it is" and warned it could create legal difficulty for the recently approved Hunter Valley Operations extension, the largest coal project in NSW.
- Climate Council CEO Amanda McKenzie likened the outcome to the Australian film The Castle: "A community group from the Upper Hunter took on a coal giant, went all the way to the high court, and won."
Why it matters: With Australia the world's second-largest coal exporter and 98% of the proposed mine's emissions coming from overseas burning, the ruling forces NSW planning authorities to weigh export emissions in every future coal expansion decision - a standard that could now be applied to challenge other approved projects, including the state's largest, the Hunter Valley Operations extension.
Ask SkimNews
