Is it really ‘madness’ to account for emissions from fossil fuels burned overseas? The Coalition sure thinks so | Temperature Check — SkimNews
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- The Australian Coalition announced plans to roll back new rules requiring fossil fuel producers to disclose the greenhouse gas emissions generated when their products are burned overseas, known as scope 3 emissions.
- The High Court of Australia ruled 3-2 last week that NSW planners should have considered imposing conditions on the overseas emissions from the Mount Pleasant coalmine, a decision the Coalition called "absurd" and "madness."
- Nationals leader Matt Canavan labeled the ruling "net zero on steroids," while fossil fuel groups warned the decision could spark a wave of legal challenges against coal projects.
- Prof Jacqueline Peel of the University of Melbourne noted that requiring the planning commission to consider scope 3 emissions has been part of NSW planning law for almost 20 years, and that the ruling did not prevent mine approval — only required consideration of conditions.
- Justice James Edelman, in the majority, wrote that the planning commission was "distracted by the accounting concepts of the scopes" and had failed to ensure scope 3 emissions were minimized to the greatest extent practicable.
- The International Court of Justice declared last year that a state's failure to protect the climate "including through fossil fuel production" may "constitute an internationally wrongful act."
- At the United Nations, 141 countries voted to back the ICJ's advisory opinion, against eight dissenters: Saudi Arabia, Russia, Israel, Iran, Yemen, Liberia, Belarus, and the United States.
Why it matters: If the Coalition succeeds, Australia's largest fossil fuel exporters would no longer have to report the scope 3 emissions that make up the lion's share of their climate impact, even as 141 nations have endorsed the ICJ's view that fossil fuel-related climate failures can constitute internationally wrongful acts.
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