Tag Archives: coal

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5 August 2015, The Conversation, Adani court case leaves the climate change question unanswered. The Federal Court has overturned the federal environmental approval of Adani’s A$16.5 billion coalmine project in central Queensland. The court ordered the approval of the Carmichael mine licence in the Galilee Basin to be set aside, meaning that Adani will have to re-apply for the coal licence and the federal environment minister Greg Hunt will have to re-approve the application. Sue Higginson, principal solicitor of the Environment Defenders Office NSW, said that the decision of the Federal Court was “based on a failure by the minister to have regard to the conservation advices for two federally listed vulnerable species” – the yakka skink and the ornamental snake. The lawsuit also alleged a failure “to consider global greenhouse emissions from the burning of the coal”. The court found that failure of the minister to take account of two endangered species specifically listed in the EPBC Act – the yakka skink and the ornamental snake – was sufficient for it to be overruled. In reviewing the endangered species the minister was not presented with the correct conservation documents which meant that any conditions that were included in the approval may have been insufficient to satisfy the requirements of the EPBC Act. One of the specific aims of the EPBC Act is to ensure that endangered species are properly protected and the endangered species list is specifically identified as a matter of national environmental significance. However, one of the other considerations raised by the Mackay conservation group – the greenhouse gas emissions released from burning extracted coal overseas – was left unresolved by the court. The EPBC Act specifically requires the principles of ecological sustainable development to be taken into account when assessing matters of national environmental significance. Whether this includes consideration of the climate change implications for the Great Barrier Reef National Park that may flow from the increase in greenhouse gas emissions from such a coal project was not resolved. Read More here

 

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31 July 2015, Renew Economy, Investors have lost their shirts on Peabody; now taxpayers are in the line of fire: The U.S. coal sector is in financial distress, a fact that’s been apparent for some time now and is made more evident with this week’s second-quarter earnings report from Peabody Energy. Peabody continues to tank for the main reasons many other major coal producers continue to tank: It made too many top-of-the-cycle, multibillion-dollar debt-funded acquisitions and its executives have continued to pretend that they can’t see the oversupply in a seaborne coal market that is in structural decline. Meanwhile, Alpha Natural Resources has been delisted from the New York Stock Exchange, Arch Coal is fighting to stay in play, and Walter Energy filed for bankruptcy this month. Some key detail from the latest numbers on Peabody, the biggest non-government-owned coal producer in the world: Read More here

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30 July 2015, The Guardian, World Bank rejects energy industry notion that coal can cure poverty, World Bank’s climate change envoy: ‘We need to wean ourselves off coal’. Bank has stopped funding new coal projects except in ‘rare circumstances’: The World Bank said coal was no cure for global poverty on Wednesday, rejecting a main industry argument for building new fossil fuel projects in developing countries. In a rebuff to coal, oil and gas companies, Rachel Kyte, the World Bank climate change envoy, said continued use of coal was exacting a heavy cost on some of the world’s poorest countries, in local health impacts as well as climate change, which is imposing even graver consequences on the developing world. “In general globally we need to wean ourselves off coal,” Kyte told an event in Washington hosted by the New Republic and the Center for American Progress. “There is a huge social cost to coal and a huge social cost to fossil fuels … if you want to be able to breathe clean air.” Coal, oil and gas companies have pushed back against efforts to fight climate change by arguing fossil fuels are a cure to “energy poverty”, which is holding back developing countries. Peabody Energy, the world’s biggest privately held coal company, went so far as to claim that coal would have prevented the spread of the Ebola virus. However, Kyte said that when it came to lifting countries out of poverty, coal was part of the problem – and not part of a broader solution. Read More here

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29 July 2015, The Guardian, Tony Abbott wrong on coal being ‘good for humanity’, Oxfam report finds: Report says Australia must embrace renewables and coal exacts an ‘enormous toll’ on health, drives climate change and is ineffective in delivering electricity to world’s poor. Tony Abbott is mistaken in claiming coal is “good for humanity”, with the fossil fuel causing numerous health problems and ineffective in delivering electricity to the world’s poor compared with renewables, a new Oxfam report has found. The Powering Up Against Poverty study argues the Australian government’s continued embrace of coal exports is out of step with an international shift towards clean energy and would do little to help the one in seven of the world’s population who do not have electricity to light their homes or cook food. Abbott has said coal, a major export commodity for Australia, is the “foundation of prosperity” for the foreseeable future. The prime minister, along with the mining industry, has said the fossil fuel will raise living standards in developing countries while bolstering Australia’s economy. Read More here