AUSTRALIA’S HIGH COURT MADE COAL PLANNERS ACCOUNT FOR OVERSEAS EMISSIONS.
The 3–2 ruling invalidated an expansion approval after the planning commission focused on only 2% of projected emissions and did not consider conditions for the other 98%.
A four-year community challenge reached Australia's highest court and forced a basic accounting correction: emissions from coal do not disappear from an approval decision because most will occur after export.
WHAT HAPPENED
MACH Energy sought to extend and expand the Mount Pleasant mine in New South Wales. The project's Scope 3 emissions—mostly from burning exported coal—were projected to make up 98% of its total greenhouse-gas emissions.\n\nBy a 3–2 majority, the High Court dismissed the company's appeal. It found the planning commission had failed to consider whether conditions should be imposed to minimize those emissions to the greatest extent practicable. The judgment leaves room for a fresh approval process; it is not a permanent ban on the mine.
WHY THIS IS HOPESLOP
Retired teachers and a local community group kept a technical climate argument alive for years and won on the evidence. The result is procedural, but procedure determines what powerful projects must face in public: here, the full climate footprint rather than the convenient 2%.
ORIGINAL SOURCEHigh Court of AustraliaRead the original report
A DAILY ALLEGATION OF PROGRESS.
One good thing from the internet, every day. Nothing else.