One of Australia's foremost firefighting leaders has warned the proposed Hunter Valley Operations coal expansion (HVO) is a climate bomb that threatens Australians with worsening fires, floods and heatwaves, as he calls on the NSW Independent Planning Commission to stop it from going ahead.
Ahead of his appearance at the public hearing this week, Climate Councillor and former Fire and Rescue NSW Commissioner Greg Mullins said: "What NSW exports as coal, we import back as bushfires, floods, heatwaves and droughts. Approving this climate bomb would put more Australians in harm's way."
"I've spent more than 50 years fighting fires, and I've watched fire seasons grow longer and more ferocious as the climate heats up. NSW communities, and the emergency crews working to protect them, are being smashed repeatedly by worsening bushfires and floods. We need to protect the Hunter and all Australians from escalating climate disasters and costs, not add more fuel to the fire.
"The IPC has the power to weigh the climate costs, and a responsibility to reject this polluting project. NSW families are already paying $20,000 a year for climate change impacts while coal corporations rake in billions in profits. This hearing is the moment for decision-makers to choose a safer future for our kids and secure jobs for the Hunter, not more pollution for corporate profit."
Proposed by Glencore in a joint venture with Yancoal, the project would extend two existing open-cut coal mines in the Hunter Valley into the 2040s. If approved, the HVO expansion would generate more than 800 million tonnes of climate pollution over its lifetime, more than seven times NSW's annual climate pollution.
Climate Councillor and climate scientist Professor David Karoly said: "NSW communities are already highly vulnerable to the increasing threat of bushfires, severe river flooding, and more frequent and intense coastal storm surges from ongoing sea level rise, thanks to the burning of coal, oil and gas.
"Approving this coal mine would fly in the face of NSW's climate targets and ignore recent warnings from the NSW Net Zero Commission and the courts.
"The IPC is required to consider the global and local climate impacts of this project, and has an obligation to reject it on climate grounds - to protect the people and environment of NSW. It is imperative that it do so."
The proposal comes before the IPC after the NSW Net Zero Commission (NZC) warned the Minns Government that further approvals of coal mine extensions and expansions would push NSW further from its legislated targets. The NZC has written to the IPC and the Department of Planning flagging its concerns.
Unlike the federal assessment that would follow, the IPC is required to consider a project's full climate impact, including the local impacts from pollution generated when the exported coal is burned overseas. That makes it the one decision-maker in the approval chain able to reject HVO on climate grounds.
The IPC is due to hand down its determination by 4 September.
Read the Climate Council's submission to the NSW IPC assessment of the HVO Continuation Project.
