The Australian Conservation Foundation and Mackay Conservation Group are considering their next move after the Queensland Land Court today rejected the groups' challenge to the approval of Whitehaven Coal's Winchester South coal mine.
The environment groups argued the court should recommend no lease be granted for the Winchester South project - one of Australia's largest proposed new coal projects, 100% for export - due to its significant environmental impacts.
The court recommended strengthening rehabilitation conditions, including further surveys, sampling and monitoring. The court also imposed a further condition requiring ecological surveys of threatened species prior to work commencing.
Adam Beeson, ACF's legal counsel, said:
"We are disappointed with the Court's decision and are considering our options.
"Although the result is not what we had hoped, this case has brought to light crucial evidence, including that Winchester coal would only have a market in a catastrophically heated world (+4°C).
"The evidence shows there's no market for this coal in a world with a safe climate.
"The economic viability of the mine was cast into doubt and Whitehaven's appalling record of breaching the law in NSW revealed - despite the company initially keeping this from the court."
Imogen Lindenberg, coordinator of Mackay Conservation Group, said:
"While this decision hurts, this case has achieved so much.
"It put the climate impacts of new coal mines under intense legal scrutiny, it forced Whitehaven to answer serious questions in court and it strengthened the legal arguments around climate harm, community impacts and future risk.
"And it showed, clearly and publicly, that communities in central Queensland are willing to stand up and challenge powerful fossil fuel companies.
"Climate wreckers must be held to account for their actions."
Stephen Turton, Adjunct Professor of Environmental Geography (Climatology) at Central Queensland University, said:
"Queensland is Australia's most climate-exposed state, with a large, decentralised population and already hot climates placing it on the global warming frontline.
"Climate change is amplifying natural hazards across the state, increasing pressure on health systems, critical infrastructure, ecosystems and key industries - and pushing emergency services to their limits.
"More frequent and intense heatwaves, bushfires, floods and tropical cyclones - driven by continued pollution from the burning of coal, oil and gas - will heighten risks to life and property and disrupt communities across the state.
"On current warming trajectories, parts of Queensland could become unliveable and uninsurable in decades, with far-reaching economic and social consequences."
ACF and MCG were represented in court by the Environmental Defenders Office.
Nicole Sommer, Principal Lawyer, Environmental Defenders Office, said:
"This case is access to justice in action. Community groups must have a genuine right to place independent scientific evidence before a tribunal like the Queensland Land Court - and that is exactly what happened here.
"The merits of this approval were tested rigorously and publicly in a way that a planning department process alone could never achieve.
"Our clients' case was groundbreaking as the first Australian court case to make arguments about the International Court of Justice's landmark advisory opinion about States' obligations to address climate change under international law.
"Merits review rights under Queensland law are a vital to ensuring communities affected by major resource decisions can have an independent body review government decisions, regardless of their resources."
At Winchester South in the Bowen Basin, Whitehaven plans to:
- Dig six huge mine pits to extract up to 17 million tonnes of thermal and metallurgical coal each year for 28 years, generating at least 583 million tonnes of climate pollution - more than the entire annual emissions of Australia.
- Release huge volumes of methane into the air, adding to the already severely underreported methane coming from the Bowen Basin.
- Destroy at least 2,000 hectares of wildlife habitat that is home to endangered and threatened species including koalas, greater gliders, the Australian painted snipe, the ornamental snake and squatter pigeon.
- Take large quantities of water from the Isaac floodplain and groundwater aquifers.
